Kyle Rankin @kyle@librem.one

8. Use Magnets to Track Pattern

The bottom of my beater bar is metal, so I attach my treadling pattern to it with magnets. Instead of marking off where I am, I group blocks (typically 4 picks) and then slide the magnet to the next block when I complete one.

This is faster than pulling out a pencil and makes it easy to visually see where I am and what's next.

#weaving

7. Throwing Side Matches Treadling Side

Whenever the pattern allows a walking pattern, I also make a point to throw my shuttle from the *same* side as I'm treadling. That way if I ever lose track of where I am, I can look at the combination of shuttle location and foot position and figure it out.

It also means if I ever depress a treadle on the right side, but the shuttle is on the left, something is wrong.

#weaving

6. Use "Walking" Tie-Ups

My center treadles are always tied up for tabby. The rest, whenever the pattern allows, instead of 1-2-3-4, I tie up in a "walking" pattern where I always move from left-side treadles to right side, and back again.

This isn't just better for ergonomics, it helps catch mistakes when you lose track of where you were. If my foot was on a left treadle, I know the next treadle must be on the right.

#weaving

5. Tying Threaded Groups Together

After threading a "round" number of heddles based on WPI or natural end of a pattern, I tie them with a temporary knot to separate from other groups.

This protects me against losing track of where I am in my threading, as I can always count the number of tied bundles.

This also protects against mistakes when sleying the reed, as I only deal with "round" numbers of threads at a time.

#weaving

4. Staggered Heddles When Threading

I, at most, separate only four heddles at a time from the rest when threading, and I stagger them in the order they are to be threaded so there is visible distance between them.

This not prevents threading mistakes, I can visually see the current 4-thread pattern in order and confirm where I am when threading a long complicated pattern.

#weaving

3. Unique Heddles

When threading your loom, it's easy to mix up a heddles from different harnesses as you are often only relying on depth perception.

I have a 4 harness loom with metal heddles. When buying more heddles for a rug project, I bought a different style, and then set up odd harnesses with one style and even with the other. This helps me catch threading mistakes as each harness is distinct from its neighbor.

#weaving

2. Maintaining the Cross

Lease sticks maintain your cross while dressing the loom to prevent counting mistakes when threading, but many instructions have you remove them after threading, I (like some Scandinavian weavers) leave them on to the end of the project.

This saved me in this project when I notice threading mistakes after I start to weave, and when a warp thread was missing entirely.

#weaving

1. Measuring Warp

When measuring warp I literally say the count over and over as a mantra as I run a thread the length of the warping board.

I always use a counting thread so I don't have to count the full number of warp threads, only smaller values (typically 10 or 12). This also means when I inevitably get distracted and lose count, I only count the warp threads on the outside of the counting thread.

#weaving

Weaving takes patience and attention to detail, at least if you want fabric that matches your plans. Mistakes are inevitable and you either accept them in the work or possibly spend hours correcting them.

All it takes is a distraction to lose where you were. Ideally you catch mistakes as soon as possible so there's less work to undo/redo. In this thread I'll describe some of my practices that help me catch errors.

#weaving

@jwhevans@mstdn.social Thank you! Yes the case is 210mm x 210mm x 134mm. I ended up disabling the skirt when slicing this model as it would have gone off the print bed!

@Kymberly There are all kinds of practices I put in place to try to catch mistakes. Some I picked up from my collection of weaving books and others I just made up. Maybe I will write up a thread listing them later today.

@apples_and_pears Yes the speed of the Comptometers (for trained operators) meant they only needed to make minor refinements over the decades they sold, mostly changes related to catching errors. I have the first Controlled Key Comptometer as well as one of the last models they made and they are very similar apart from a handful of refinements. Great design overall.

@apples_and_pears Ignoring Comptometer, which went their own way, the rest copied the black/green color scheme and full-key layout basically until the post-WWII era when the aesthetic turned toward military greens, shifting to greys in the 50s/60s.

@apples_and_pears For instance, I'm pretty well convinced that the unified UI you saw for full keyboard adder-listers starting in the 1920s had to do with Burroughs dominating the market (and acquiring most big competitors) and the remaining competitors in the market painting their own adder/listers to match the classic Burroughs black case/green felt under the keyboard design from the Model 1 so they could hope to replace Burroughs in some businesses.

@apples_and_pears I have a pretty good cross-section of different designs in my calculator collection, and the common thread seems to be that the UI is simply a method to expose whatever mechanically needed to be done behind the scenes. That combined with the patent issues meant every design had a different UI.

It's similar to certain Linux CLI applications I won't name where it's clear the developer simply exposed internal function calls instead of thinking about UX.

@apples_and_pears This is the RC Allen whitelabel of the Facit pinwheel calculator I was referring to before. Very unusual key layout but surprisingly nice to use.

The second attempt is looking good for this 3D printed case for my knitting clock. Along with fixing some mistakes in my design, I also modified it so that it could print for the most part without supports. There was one area where that was unavoidable, so I added in basic supports. While there is a little cleanup where it bridged there, it's much less than I saw when I enabled internal supports in the first print.

#3dprinting

@Kymberly Interesting! I haven't done it in advance before and normally just shift the reed if I was off. I will have to try this for a future project.

@apples_and_pears Ahh that Dalton is different from my Facit clone, which is more an attempt to add pushbutton UI to a classic pinwheel design.

@apples_and_pears I have an RC Allen white label of a Facit adding machine like this in my collection. It's one of my favorite to use.