I should’ve known better.

Sadly, the name Blackwater Project is more apropos than I realized. This is the point that I expect to hear a collective “I told you so!” from all the people who have been weaving for more than a week. Last night I spent nearly 2 hours in the loom room and it wasn’t such a happy place. During that time, I managed to get two picks woven. Two.

Any sane weaver would cut bait (warp) and run. My head is telling me to do that. My stubbornness won’t let me. Yet. Maybe.

First thing, I found that the slinky through the reed is impairing the shed of the main warp. I won’t say that there is NO shed, but it’s a pretty sad shed. It’s more of a lean-to than a shed. Or a shanty.

Number 2: I misjudged the weight of the bamboo yarn relative to the cotton main warp (8/2 cotton). I ran 160 ends of the bamboo vs. 480 ends of cotton. It is so thick that I can’t see ANY black warp through it. I probably could’ve done with 80 of the bamboo ends.

C: The bamboo warp is very slippery, and catches easily. (Anyone remember my brown drapy rayon scarf, aka the Eternity Project, because it took an eternity to secure the slippery yarns? AARGH!) So the pick-up sticks I’m using have to be extremely smooth, or I’m snagging the yarn. And, my favorite pick-up sword is about ½ inch shorter than the width, so I am using one of my lease sticks, not as smooth as I’d like.

Then – I’m having to finger through each end to make sure I’m getting the two layers of warp on the pickup stick, sort of pushing slinky tines back and forth to get to the main warp. It’s slow, and you know, black is hard to see even if it’s NOT buried under multi-black/gray/silver yarn.

Finally, once I’ve got the shed on the pickup (lease) stick, the boat shuttle didn’t want to go through. I’ll try a stick shuttle and I think that will be better.

Geesh – listen to me. Already optimism is trying to creep back in. What is wrong with me???