Okay life is good, I have my Weavebird put together and working beautifully.  I am weaving hand towels on a 24 harness point twill.  The warp is 8/2 cotton.  I am using 16/2 cotton doubled for the weft.  I make two balls and wind them together on my pirn.  When I am weaving they seem to wind off unevenly.  I get one of the warp threads coming out faster than the other.  So I stop and fix it.  But is there a way I can wind the weft on to the pirn without this happening?  Thanks for any suggestions.

Comments

Tue, 03/18/2014 - 15:35

laurafry

Is there a reason you are winding from balls instead of off the tube?  The yarn will run off much easier if the tubes are stood on their ends and the yarn taken off one end.  Just be sure the yarn is winding off the tubes the same direction.

A doubling stand is helpful in getting the yarns to wrap around each other during winding, too.  I made one out of a tall plastic bucket and cut a hole in the lid to run the thread from the botton up through it and then through the tube of the one on the top.  Cones work better for a doubling stand but 2/16 cotton usually seems to come on tubes rather than cones.

You should also be winding your pirns (singly or doubly) with a fair degree of tension to make sure the yarn feeds off smoothly.

cheers,

Laura

Tue, 03/18/2014 - 16:01

weaver1126

My 16/2 came on cones.  I have large cones, but usually only one of each color.  So I wound a ball off the cone and then wound my pirn from the ball and the cone.  Now to work on making a doubling stand.  

Tue, 03/18/2014 - 17:39

laurafry

It doesn't have to be fancy. A cardboard box on its side with a hole cut out would work, but since you have a ball a bucket might be better. Put the ball in the bucket and run it up through the hike in the lid, through the centr of the cone and wind with tension. Cheers Laura
Tue, 03/18/2014 - 17:51

Sara von Tresckow

I have had success, when nothing better was available, by making quills or bobbins of the yarn, inserting it into a shuttle (free running) and winding the pirn or quill from a combination of the cone and the quill.

One thing to be careful of is not to let the threads separate while winding, they MUST wind on together under pretty much the same tension.

Tue, 03/18/2014 - 20:59

weaver1126

Thanks so much.  Everything else was going so well, it was frustrating to have to stop and fix the uneven weft.

Tue, 03/18/2014 - 21:22

sandra.eberhar…

I have had exactly the same problem when using rug warp doubled.  I generally use a doubling stand (in my case a doubling cardboard box), but I was not able to make it work with tubes of warp.  I could have wound the tubes onto cones (when you use cones on a doubling stand, you run the bottom thread through the cone of the top thread so one winds around the other).  So I plied two tubes together on a spinning wheel.  Much better.

Wed, 03/19/2014 - 15:18

weaver1126

Had a long discussion with my husband last night about why it was okay to poke a hole in the bucket.  Pretty funny.  I had to demonstrate for him how it would work before I did it.  Next time I just won't tell him.  But it was his bucket.

Wed, 03/19/2014 - 20:26

pammersw

LOL, I can imagine the conversation! 

Thu, 03/20/2014 - 09:55

ReedGuy

Peggy Osterkamp has a blog entry on a doubling stand.

http://peggyosterkamp.com/doubling-stand-make-your-own