Pioneer Loom

This is a view from above of the Pioneer loom. The front and back beams pull out and there are hooks every inch across the edge of the aprons. This makes it possible to warp up, thread and sley in one action since each thread can be dropped into its heddle and its dent. The photo shows the reed with its cap on for weaving but the reed itself has no top.

This is a different view of the heddles showing that they are fixed only at the bottom and have no tops. You will note that the warp is spread which is because the heddles 'walk' away from the centre. The handbook mentions this and says the heddles should be pushed back into place which is not easy until you get the knack. It needs doing after every inch of weaving, say 20 throws. All in all, an unusual loom with a lot of time needed to get used to it. There seems no point in using it UNLESS you are are going to rethread and/or resley while weaving because weaving is very slow.  Although I intend to use it for resleying, I would be wary of rethreading. The Complex Weavers 2014 entry is clearly not going to be woven on this loom! But I ahev come up with a plan for using the Megado.

Yesterday I went to the print class and cut two lino blocks out of the eleven needed for Sir Ptarick Spens. Next time I will practise printing on the press. The tutor is very keen that Hot Pressed paper is used but I may not be able to print the poem on such paper so we are agreed that the first thing to do is just to print on all the suitable kinds of paper I can find in the house. The fall back position is that I print the lino cuts on the correct paper, scan them into the computer and print that but the effect will not be so good. One thing I have realised is that mentally I had decided that Sir Patrick Spens would be a hardback but bound in Japanese style. That makes a big difference to the print layout are I need folded paper. I am wondering about a one section book.

Malvern had three glaziers until recently where I could get picture frames glassed but one went bust, one abandonned doing picture framing and the third uses too thick glass. So I took four frames to Leamington Spa over the weekend and had them properly done. I finished off two pictures last night and am about to finish off the other two. At last the nice piece of gold work bought in Kuala Lumpur is framed!! Now all I need to do is find somewhere to hang the pictures. The other pictures are an interesting selection, an ink drawing by Michael which is tiny but lovely, a print from the Brussels Print Museum  and a photo from the Blue Mountains in Australia. Trouble is that I cannot say the framing project is completed because I have one more frame which was not quite ready for glassing last week. That one frame is for a rather nice batik of fishes, again from Kuala Lumpur which I miss visiting.

Today is bookbinding day. I am repairing three books for Derek, my son-in-law. One has the spine present but hanging by a thread and unusable, the other two had no spines at all. So I charged Derek with getting pictures of the spines in good condition for me. He sent them within 24 hours. He got them by looking on ebay to see if any were for sale and using the photos there! I would never have thought of that.