I got these beauties in Sweden. They are great for longer warps – warps long enough that I don’t really have sufficient warp packing for.
This warp is 11 meters long, and while I can eek out my bamboo blinds I decided to go with the flanges again. I’ve been beaming so many short warps for the past few years I’d gotten out of practice with the flange sticks.
Using the warping valet (another tool first seen by me in Sweden – same studio as the flanges, actually) I got the warp beamed this afternoon. I really like using the flanges for longish wide warps – this warp was just 15″ in the reed, so it was a good one to use to practice before I do something wider – like tea towels.
I’ll also confess that I do use a brush on my warps. Not all of them, of course – just ones that won’t be harmed by brushing. Many weavers gasp in horror when I reveal my heresy.
Yes, I could just finger comb. If I had all day to put a warp on that is. Quite frankly a brush speeds up the process considerably. This warp took about 25 minutes to beam. Would have been faster if I’d just been tossing the blinds in – the flanges do take a bit of fussing to get them to the correct width. :}
I don’t generally announce how long it takes me to do the various tasks involved in weaving. The initial response is usually disbelief. 🙁
But I am fast, and the reason I am fast is that I chose weaving as a career right from the get-go so I have spent 30+ years analysing what I do and working out how to do it more efficiently and ergonomically. I try to accomplish the most by exerting the least amount of effort. And I steal good ideas whenever I see them. 🙂
So since I was doing a time study with the flanges, I also noticed how long it took to thread (about 13 minutes to thread 150 ends in a 10 thread repeat over four shafts), and about 7 minutes to sley. Tying up took about a minute.
Then I hit an impasse because before I can start weaving I have to cone some skeins of yarn. So I watched some tv and knitted and now I’m about to head back to the studio and see if I can’t finish getting ready for the Beginning Weaving class tomorrow while the cone winder chugs so I can start weaving yet tonight.