Category: AVL Loom repairs
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Reply Guys
I’m no stranger to ‘reply guys’ trying to ‘teach’ me things. Mostly I ignore them. Mostly. Recently one replied to a short answer I wrote in an online group to ‘teach’ me because my answer ‘wasn’t entirely correct’. Of course it wasn’t. It was a very brief response to a specific question – a…
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Superweaver
throwing the shuttle During my four decades as a professional weaver, I ran into some…interesting…attitudes. I was reminded of several times I ran afoul of the then Weaving Police as I upgraded my equipment in order to earn an income from my efforts. I have shared – frequently – some of these anecdotes and…
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Maintenance
Normally I weave on the AVL pretty reguarly. Unfortunately with the way Life Happened over the last six months, I barely got to the studio, never mind the AVL. Since the AVL is a wooden ‘machine’ with lots of added bells and whistles, it needs maintenance. When I’m weaving on it during the winter,…
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Process Path
A while back I offered to make cloth for ‘sister’ wraps for a couple of young women I know. Katie sent me a photo when I asked what colours they liked and Carol pretty much said – what Katie said. This photo was taken by Katie near Telkwa, BC and I was given free rein…
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More ‘Loom”, More Problems
The AVL that I weave on has more mechanics than an ‘ordinary’ floor loom. It has fly shuttle (which I only use when I’m weaving wider than 30″ or so – otherwise I hand throw), auto cloth advance, computer assisted dobby, and the most recent addition – air assist. When I first started weaving, I…
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Technology
has been kicking my butt this summer. So far I have replaced my desktop, the computer that runs the loom, my iPad and now we are waiting to see if the boiler that runs Puff (industrial steam press) can be fixed. I have to give thanks to Bob (Fiberworks) and Allan (computer guru friend) for…
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Stalwart
This is a view of the AVL with dobby. The black box is the original Compu-Dobby I – yes, I’m still using ‘antique’ equipment – and the silver cylinder is the piston that has opened every single shed since it was installed in…ta-DAH! – 1998. I believe I picked up the parcels in May so…
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Antique
My AVL is an ‘antique’. Yes, that’s right, it’s number 00181. It was probably the first loom shipped with a fly shuttle and the auto-cloth advance arrived about six months later. This was in, oh, 1982. So the loom is ‘antique’ at 32 years old. That’s 32 years of production weaving, with literally miles and…
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Happy Birthday Canada
Doug in the office with the ‘new’ curtains close up of cloth on the loom So, Happy Birthday office. Nearly. Yesterday I decided that I could no longer ignore that rather long list of things to-be-done. Doug is going to beam a new warp on the AVL and I couldn’t stand the thought of the…
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One Step
Yesterday was amazingly frustrating and therefore stressful as I first fought with the yarns then fought with the loom. The downside of having as much technology on a loom as I have is that when things go wrong (and they do go wrong!) sometimes it’s hard to figure out what exactly is causing the grief.…