Fiber Arts & Furry Critters

Countermarche Loom, In Detail

This is going to be a long, picture-heavy post about my loom.  Apparently there aren't a lot of this particular loom out there, and those that are out there are not well documented.  The company apparently went out of business in the mid to late 1980s. 

This post is not necessarily exhaustive, and not necessarily entirely correct.  This is just what I have found out about this loom and about operating this loom.  If anyone has any corrections or any further knowledge, please let me know and I'll make corrections.

This is a countermarche loom, and the company that made it was called Berga Ullman.  (There are some Swedish or Norwegian accent marks in there somewhere, too.)  As looms go, there are only a few variations in functional type.  One is called a jack loom, and the other is called a counterbalance loom.  On a jack loom, the harnesses or shafts are individually controlled.  You can raise just one harness.  On a counterbalance loom, one harness is raised and the opposite one is lowered; picture a teeter-totter.  One side goes up, one goes down.  In a countermarche loom, one harness goes up, and all the other harnesses go down.  Or two harnesses go up, and the others go down. 

The devil is in the details, and that's where my pictures come in.  If you click on the pictures, they will get a little bigger.  If you need close-ups of other details, let me know.  Here goes:

This is a picture taken from the back of the loom.  This loom is in a very small room; there is literally enough room to walk around one side of the loom, and that's about it.  In this picture, you can see the upper lamms, coming together in an upside-down kind of "V" at the top center of the loom.  You can also see the individual harnesses (shafts) in the middle.

This is the lower part of the back of the loom.  On the left-hand side is the brake cable.  You can see the lower lamms through the loom, visible between the back breast beam and the back warp beam.

This is a picture taken from the left side of the loom.  I call it the left side because it would be the left if you were sitting in position as if to weave, in front of the loom.  I hope that makes sense.  In this picture you can better see the upper lamms (slanted), the wires that run from the harnesses up to the lamms, and one of the cats walking on the back breast beam.

Close-up from the left side, of the harnesses, beater bar, front cloth beam, treadles, front breast beam.

Upper lamms.  I had to hang a sheet to cover the stuff on that shelf behind as the visual was too distracting.

The wires that connect the upper lamms, lower lamms, and harnesses run up the center of the open space in the middle of the loom, then divide near the top; one wire goes to the left set of upper lamms, the other wire goes to the right set.

The wires run in front of each harness.

From the front of each harness, they go through a hole in this cross bar, then separate so that one set attaches to the left lower lamm, and the other set attaches to the right lower lamm.

The lamms connect to the treadles with pins.  The pins have a U-shape bend on one end, and an L-shaped bend on the other. 

There are also wires that connect from the outside edge of each harness to the outside edge of each of the upper lamms.  These work to raise the harnesses.  You can see these wires on the left side of this and the following pictures.

 

In this picture you can see a little bit of the warp, along with the cloth beam and the treadles.

This picture shows the treadles and a little of the lower lamms.

Treadles and lower lamms; each of the lamms has five hooks.  Five hooks go to the left, for the treadles on the left of center, and five on the right-hand lamms.

Close-up of lower lamms, with treadle hooks and wires connected.

Now, this loom has 8 harnesses and 10 treadles, for various treadle combinations.  For each harness there is a lamm that makes that harness go up, and one that makes the harness go down.  So there are 16 lamms - one for harness 1 up, harness 1 down, etc.

To do a tie-up for a countermarche loom, you have to understand that every harness needed in the pattern has to be connected to every treadle.  For example, say you are going to make a 4-harness pattern in a 1-2-3-4 order.

For harness 1 to go up, harnesses 2, 3 and 4 have to go down.

For harness 2 to go up, harnesses 1, 3 and 4 have to go down.

So you move the lamms until you identify which lamms function to move which harnesses, and identify which lamm makes it move up, and which lamm makes it move down.  Then you have to attach the U-shaped end of the treadle pin to the eyelet (on the previously identified lamm) that lines up with the treadle you need, and slide the L-shaped end into the slot in that treadle.

For a 4-harness pattern, you will need 16 pins - 4 pins for each treadle used in the pattern.

If this is as clear as mud, contact me and I'll do my best to help.  If you need any other detail pictures of the loom, let me know that as well.  I'll do what I can.

Kindles

We have purchased several kindles for people as gifts this holiday season.  I love my Kindle (I have a Kindle 3, with the keyboard) as well as the Kindle apps on my other devices.  Amazon has done for reading what iPods did for music.  They make it fast and easy to buy and read books, and they have done it with (retail stores take notice!) excellent customer service, for the most part.  Having been a Kindle user (of both a Kindle 3 and Kindle apps on multiple devices) I thought some new users might find the following information helpful.

One of the great things about Kindle, besides the fact that you can make text bigger, is that there are a lot of free books for it!  This makes it worth setting up a Kindle app if you have a compatible device.  Sure, a lot of them are fluff romances, but there are also quite a few mystery, thriller, horror, and paranormal-everything genres as well.

Another great thing about Kindles - although this doesn't work for the Kindle apps (I wish it did!) is that you can set the book to read to you!  If you're into a book, and have to leave for work or shopping (or even exercise) you can turn on the text-to-speech and the mechanical voice in the Kindle will read to you while you do other things.  Some people hate the mechanical voice, some people don't mind it.  You'll have to make up your own mind.  I mostly don't mind it, but it does sometimes get words wrong.  I do wish it were available on the apps, though!

Kindles also keep track of the last page you read.  This is a great feature!  It remembers where you stopped, even if you sampled several books.  It keeps track of your last page read in all of them.  It even lets you switch between devices.  If you have a Kindle, and a Kindle app on another device, whether it's an iPad or a smartphone, you can start reading on the Kindle, and pick up the same book on your other device (assuming it has had a chance to sync over the WiFi "Whispernet") and keep reading at the same place you left off. 

Here are some helpful websites for new Kindle owners (or new Kindle app users, for that matter!)

The first is Pixel of Ink. On their website they have links to free books on Amazon.com and you can also find them (and get their links) on Facebook, or via a daily email.  One of their other endeavors is Inspired Reads.  That deals with Christian books for Kindle, both fiction and non-fiction.

Please note that not all books offered are free, and that some are free when offered, but prices sometimes change.  Follow the link, and if you're looking for free books, don't click "Buy" unless the price says $0.00.

You can also find Kindle-compatible books, some of them free, at other websites.  One of these is Smashwords.  Most of the books there do not have DRM (Digital Rights Management). 

There's also Kobo.  Like Smashwords, Kobo has some free books, but most of them have DRM.  Only get books that do NOT specify "ADOBE EPUB DRM". 

Baen Books has mostly science fiction and fantasy books.  They have a bunch of free books as well.

Project Gutenberg has all free books, classics & out-of-copyright books. For books from places other than Amazon, pick Kindle format, or .mobi format. You can also get a computer program called Calibre for free that can do conversions from one format to another. You can then side-load those books to your Kindle.  Please ask if you need more information as to how that is done.

You can also download some books from author websites (J.A. Konrath has a few at http://www.jakonrath.com/ ).  If you find books in PDF format, you can email those documents in PDF form to yourself at your kindle address (ex. yourname @ free.kindle.com ) It will convert those to Kindle format and put them on your reader. Your kindle address is set up when you first set your kindle up for use.  It can be found under the settings screen as "Send-to-Kindle" email.

There is also one particularly helpful podcast - The Kindle Chronicles podcast.  It's free, and can be listend to or downloaded on your computer, or set up to download automatically through iTunes.  He talks a LOT about hints & tips, and also does an interview in every show (mostly weekly).  The last 2 or 3 episodes have included the Kindle Fire. There's another Kindle podcast called Kindle Women that is very chatty and does some read-alongs and book reviews.

Some books are available on more than one website.  If you want to search for a specific book, it may be cheaper on a non-Amazon site, from which you would have to download it in a Kindle-compatible format and "side-load" onto your Kindle from a computer.  Inkmesh.com is a search engine specifically for e-books and audio books.  You can search for a specific title, an author, and even include or exclude by format (audio or e-book).

One thing I recommend unquestionably is a cover.  Get a cover that has a STIFF top and bottom.  These devices are plastic, and the inherent flexibility of plastic has been known to result in a cracked screen if not protected.  People have discovered that doing something like carrying it in a purse or backpack without protection can crack the screen. 

For more helpful advice, information on where to find free books, and industry chat, check out the MobileRead Forums - an online website where people can post and talk about their e-reader devices.

Most of the above websites will require you to register and create a login ID and password, but they are all websites that I use regularly and are generally considered safe.  If there are other websites of use that I should add, please feel free to let me know.  If I can answer any questions, ask away.  I'm happy to help.

Just found a Kindle help page on Facebook that seems to cover a LOT of ground.  This could be very helpful! https://www.facebook.com/kindle?sk=app_10442206389

My Christmas gift has arrived!

Yesterday the UPS guy brought me this:

This is my box from Ron at Fancy Kitty!  There was a handwritten thank you note in that plastic pouch in the front, with the receipt, and I love the "MADE IN USA" stickers on the box! 

And this is the carder:

It's huge!  It's capable of making a full 4-oz batt (some people get bigger ones!), 36" long!  I'm looking forward to making some fantastic spinning blends, mainly wool/alpaca (75 or 80% wool, 20-25% alpaca, maybe a little angora fiber in there, too - ooooh!)  I ran it for a few minutes just to try it out - without weighing or measuring the fiber - and it's so quiet, too!  Amazing!

My hubby buys me the BEST gifts!  Thank you so much, sweetie!

I'll be working hard at finishing my Christmas knitting, so I can get to some drum carding - all those gorgeous fleeces I've been washing lately! -  and for that matter, so I can get around to replacing the heddles on the loom!  I got those awesome Texsolv heddles in the mail, and have not yet had time to cut the warp off, restring all the heddles, and re-thread and re-warp the loom!  Go figure...