Slow Learning Curve

 I cut the double weave sampler off last week, and started the "quilted" portion of the sampler from Jennifer Moore's book, The 
Weaver's Studio:  Doubleweave.  The left shows the start, and I was so excited, I couldn't wait to photograph it.  But then, the brakes screeched when I noticed the design wasn't quite right.  I wove a few picks of tabby, alternating colors to keep it interesting and started again.  Oops!  Goofed again!  You really do need to make sure you have a clean shed, just as Ms. Moore says!   And because the pattern in the book only shows half the pattern, stopping with the center thread, one has to read backwards for the second half.  Apparently, that's not my forte!  Restart, stop, tabby, and then I just kept going.  There are a couple of mistakes in the next try, too, but I want to just get it done, and move on to Pick Up.

at rest

flexed

 I started having trouble with shafts sticking to each other and had to get under the loom to see what was going on.  Here are Nancy's lamm connectors, steel scissor-like things that rub on each other and on their neighbors.  It causes the shafts to come up when they're not invited.

at rest

flexed

 Here are Jenny's.  They're much smaller and they don't interfere with each other as much.  Nancy is from 1978 and Jenny is a 1979 model, so it's interesting to see how LeClerc changed them from one year to the next.  I suppose I could order new ones for Nancy.

 And here we have my day-off project for the day.  Do you think that's enough room for a new loom?  It looks pretty small to me, but I became determined to keep the looms in the same room when I realized that I love the library just the way it is, loomless.  We'll find out tomorrow, when I bring home the 8-shaft Tools of the Trade I'm buying from the Center!  If it fits in the Loominaria, it'll be cozy, but I can only weave on one loom at once, anyway, right?