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Fiberworks Silver’s shaft shuffler
I recently watched a video on how to convert an Atwater style shadow weave threading and treadling to the Powell style. It was a real eye-opener for me because it really made it much easier to thread the yarn and simpler to keep track of where you are in the treadling sequence. And then I got to thinking about some of the really lovely echo and iris WIFs I’ve looked at that seem very complicated to thread. I tried out the shaft shuffler and with one of them, but it didn’t seem to work. What other weaving categories might shuffler make setup and weaving simpler?
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2 Replies
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I’ve used the shaft shuffler on a number of occasions for a variety of different weave structures. Huck is one where I might want to shift the shafts. Sometimes the ‘plain weave’ threads are shown on shafts 2 and 3 but my loom has been set up with more heddles on shaft 1 and 2.
Other weave structures are double weave. Sometimes it’s easier to design in one threading, but easier to thread and/or weave with the threads in a different sequence.
I frequently change treadlings to make them easier to treadle. Plus I have a very specific way I like to set up my 2:2 treadles. My preference isn’t always what others prefer, so I will change the tie up and treadling to suit me.
It isn’t a tool I use very often, but when I do, it makes things a lot easier for me. :)
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Another trick I use a lot to make threadings easier to “read” and execute at the loom is to fiddle with the thickness of threads. This works especially well for threadings with echoes/parallels, which can look pretty random if all the threads have equal weight in the diagram.
For example, here’s the undulating threading with echo from the new Undulating Twills course. In one version all the threads are the same size. In the second version, the design line is full size but the echo is very skinny. You can clearly see what the design line itself is doing, which is usually easier to track and remember than the mad jumble of a bunch of echoes. Then you just need to remember that each of the design line threads is followed by another thread two shafts up, and you’ve got the whole threading. I do this a lot for shadow weave.
I also do it when I’m interleaving two twill threadings that are doing very different things, but in that case I’ll print out two versions, one with one design line emphasized and one with the other emphasized. This works particularly well when I’ve wound the two warps separately so I’m threading each from their own lease sticks.
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