Category Archives: Texsolv cord

heddle jig, long-eye heddles, seine twine, Texsolv cord

Long-Eye Heddles

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Now that I have my heddle jig for making long-eye heddles for the drawloom, this was a good day to begin. I had removed an old “string” heddle from the loom to use for placement of nails, and have left it on the jig to follow where to tie the square knots. Using seine twine, I’ve begun cutting lengths and tieing long-eye heddles.
I’m not sure yet how many I will need to make but figuring it will be 1,000 or more, as there are only 100 or so on each ground shaft right now. Yes, I could order Texsolv heddles, but I like having the old-style string heddles on this loom, so plan to keep it this way for now. I’ve also been making my own pattern heddles, as I did around 23 years ago. Also, the cost of changing over to all Texsolv heddles for ground and pattern harnesses would be significant.

I will be changing other tie-ups (shafts to jacks) over to Texsolv cord, as well as using Texsolv cords from jacks to treadles. In these cases, I prefer the Texsolv for making adjustments over tieing knots in the old way. Sometimes, convenience wins out.

countermarche tie-up, table runners, Texsolv cord, towels
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After several days of interruptions and shifting priorities, I am back working on the CM loom. Days ago, I had found quite a number of tie-up cords missing, so I ordered a spool of Texsolv cord. Today I counted out cords to see how many long and short cords I had, cut those needed and with a lit candle, slightly melted the ends to make it easier to pass them through the holes in the lamms. Since I’m setting up for a ten shaft twill plus plain weave, I needed 60 long cords and 60 short cords (shown above).

Sitting inside the loom, I added the long cords to the upper lamms and my 16 year old daughter , after being shown how, added the short cords to the lower lamms. Then after tieing up the treadles, I’ll be able to thread the heddles, tie the warp on, and begin weaving.

In addition to the bleached and unbleached cottolin for weft, I have cones of white slub cotton, and also found cones of unbleached slub tow linen on my shelves, so I will have even more variety in design choices. I am going to enjoy weaving these towels and table runners.