Happy Halloween

It is Halloween but not observed today in Utah because it falls on a Sunday.  Children and their parents were encouraged to trick or treat last night.  There have been no visitors this evening so I will have quite a lot to leave at my voting place on Tuesday.  It's really handy that election day falls so close on the heels of Halloween.  The people who are there all day enjoy the candy and I get it out of the house.  Good for everyone.

I have made progress on the warp today and have photos to post here.  There are none of the warping mill which began life as a Glimakra vertical warping mill and has been customized a bit.  It is permanently installed in the shed.  It is four meters in circumference so it is as big as a revolving door.  There is a heck block, a device that allows me to make a thread-by-thread cross at one end of the warp while I make a cross at the other end that I use in the little raddle to spread the warp out between the pegs in the sectionl beam.

This photo shows the drum wound with the ribbon of warp.  If you look carefully to the right of the Baltic plywood flange you can just see the galvanized pipe that serves as the axle to allow the drum to turn.  The white cords to the left of the warp connect to the castle at one end (via an S-hook on the end of the cord and another on a short cord tied to the castle) and to the sandbag weight at the other.

The ribbon of warp is passing through the raddle you can see here.  The base turns so that the warp can be spread precisely between the pegs on the sectional warp beam.  Once the warp is spread properly, then I turn the sectional beam to wind on the warp.

Here is a closer looki at the warp going through the little raddle.

This picture from the front of the loom shows the sections of the beam filled with 46 yards of warp.I have more than half left to do.   I hope it goes smoothly.  The cords to the right with S-hooks at the end are waiting attachment to the warp ribbons I will install tomorrow.  These extender cords allow me to weave clear to the end of the warp.  The thrums are just as long as the castle is deep.  Once all of it has been beamed then I can stay inside and thread it.


My NPR station is running locally produced Halloween stories acted out as radio dramas.  I recall radio  dramas from my childhood (The Green Hornet, Inner Sanctum, Sky King, etc.) and like them very much.  The pictures are so good!

Happy Halloween.