Related Manuals for AVL Looms Little Weaver
Summary of Contents for AVL Looms Little Weaver
- Page 1 Little Weaver Revision 2 User’s Manual Version 1.0 May 9, 2023 AVL Looms 2360 Park Avenue, Chico, CA, USA 95928 Ph. 530-893-4915 | Fax 530-893-1372 www.avllooms.com | sales@avlusa.com...
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Page 2: Table Of Contents
Contents Introduction ................................1 Getting to Know Your Loom ..........................2 Loom Diagram ..................................2 Picking Up Your Loom ................................. 2 Folding and Unfolding Your Loom ..........................3 Power ......................................3 Changing Your Reed ................................4 Tension Release Lever ................................. 4 Setting Up Your New Loom.............................. - Page 3 Weaving ....................................16 Winding Shuttles ................................16 Begin Weaving ..................................16 Advancing the Warp Using Standard Warp Tension ..................17 Continue Weaving ................................17 Finishing Your Woven Fabric............................. 17 Edges ......................................17 Washing ....................................18 Resources .................................. 19 Books and Print ..................................19 Online .......................................
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Page 4: Introduction
Dear Weaver, Congratulations on your new Little Weaver! Your Little Weaver stands on the shoulders of some pretty phenomenal advancements in the world of weaving. AVL Looms has been in the business of designing and building some of the world’s finest handweaving looms since 1976. -
Page 5: Getting To Know Your Loom
Picking Up Your Loom A Little Weaver with a full capacity of 24 harnesses weighs about 50 lbs. (22.5 kg) with a reduction of about 5 lbs (2.2 kg) for each group of 8 harness removed. It is important to recognize that this weight is heavy enough to injure yourself if you are not careful. -
Page 6: Folding And Unfolding Your Loom
Folding and Unfolding Your Loom The Little Weaver is able to be folded for easier handling and transporting, to save space in storage and to protect the loom during these activities. When folded the loom depth decreases from 26 ½ to 16 ¼ inches (67 to 41 cm). -
Page 7: Changing Your Reed
Little Weaver through the rough treatment of shipping. Keeping them will save you the hassle and cost of acquiring replacements should you ever need to ship your Little Weaver. Also, the foam inserts fit perfectly into the Little Weaver Rolling Case (sold separately) for added protection during travel! -
Page 8: First Time Starting Up Your Loom
First Time Starting Up Your Loom To run your loom, plug in the power cord and select the ‘On’ position for the power switch. Little Weaver requires approximately two minutes to boot up. Watch the Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) on the front panel under the beater. -
Page 9: Weaving Action
Weaving Action One of the best features of Little Weaver is how the shed is tied to the beater movement. With most table looms, the weaver must reset levers for each shed, which destroys your weaving rhythm. With Little Weaver, the shed action is tied to the beater movement. By pulling the beater forward to beat, internal mechanisms close the shed and change it for the next pick. -
Page 10: Glossary Of Terms
Glossary of Terms Beat/Beating: The act of pulling the beater toward you after placing a weft thread, to push it into place. Bobbin: A reel, spool or cylinder that holds yarn. Cross: Also known as a lease, the weaver’s cross is formed when preparing the warp threads. Every other thread is crisscrossed, so that when you are ready to thread the loom, the threads are in order. - Page 11 Take-up: The amount of warp that is used up by going over and under the weft threads. Thread: Thread refers to the yarn that you are using in the warp and weft. Threading: Your threading refers to the order in which you have placed your warp threads onto the harnesses.
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Page 12: Learning To Weave
You’ll also want a pattern that is set at an EPI that is compatible with the dent sized reed you have. The Little Weaver comes standard with a 10 DPI (dents per inch) reed. -
Page 13: Using A Warping Board
Using a Warping Board Now that you have your yarn, it’s time to prepare it for warping onto your loom. Using a warping board will help you to measure your warp threads to the precise length you need and help you to create the weaver’s cross. - Page 14 For a sett of 20 epi and a raddle with 4 dents per inch, each raddle cross group would be 5 threads. Note that the Little Weaver raddle is 4 dents per inch. A false cross doesn’t look like either a threading or a raddle cross. It looks similar to the threading cross, except that the X is circled by threads.
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Page 15: Warping Your Beam
Remove the warp from the warping board by chaining or by winding on the kite stick. Start from the threading cross and proceed to the raddle cross. Warping Your Beam AVL recommends warping your loom back to front, which means using a raddle. If you have a Little Weaver Raddle, you will now need to insert it to the top of your loom using the holes provided and remove the lid by undoing the hook &... -
Page 16: Threading, Sleying, And Tying On
Your weaving draft will determine how many heddles you’ll need on which harnesses. Please note that the eye size of the Little Weaver heddles is smaller than a standard sized 8” heddle. This smaller eye gives you a bigger shed. If you use standard 8” heddles, you will get a smaller shed for each of those threads. -
Page 17: Threading
If you need to move heddles from one harness to another, you’ll need to unclip the harness from the linkage. Unhook the linkage strip from the harness, pull the harness out of the loom and then remove one of the harness sides for each harness that you plan to move heddles to or from. To unclip the harness, locate the clip attached to the bottom center of the harness, the open side of the clip will be facing the back of the loom. -
Page 18: Sleying
Peggy and Jim Ahrens were great friends. Automatic Warp Tension Little Weaver is equipped with an automatic warp tension system based on the age-old live weight principle that is well-known in weaving circles. It is much better than a locking brake warp tension because it decreases stress on the warp and loom mechanisms, and it maintains a consistent warp tension even through advancing the warp. -
Page 19: Weaving
Now that you have your design picked out, your loom warped and your pirns wound, you are ready to weave! Make sure that your Little Weaver is plugged in, and your computer is connected by following the instructions found earlier in the Setting up Your Loom portion of this manual. Open a tabby weave to test that your threads are lifting correctly and that you don’t have any accidental mis-threadings or crossed... -
Page 20: Advancing The Warp Using Standard Warp Tension
To resume weaving after a break, open the browser and type in the address in URL line, select your WIF in the Files tab and select Resume in the popup menu. Bring the beater forward to have Little Weaver fire the next pick, resuming where you left off. -
Page 21: Washing
To make twisted fringe, there are fringe twisting tools available, but you can also easily do it by hand. Take the total number of threads you want for one twisted fringe and split it in half. Take one half of the threads and twist them together. -
Page 22: Resources
Shipping and/or Transporting Your Loom If you need to ship your Little Weaver, re-package it in the original box and foam inserts. If you do not have your original packaging, you can contact AVL to purchase new packaging. Ensure that the beams are folded in and locked, and the beater is back against the harnesses before installing the top foam insert. -
Page 23: Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting Weaving Issues Dropped Threads If a thread breaks or drops during weaving and it is not a necessary thread for your pattern, or you prefer to just continue weaving, you can wrap the thread around a bobbin or pirn and hang it from the back of the loom.
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