In my last post I was just putting together the Tempo Treadle and getting it to the point of turning it on. Now I’m practically a seasoned veteran. Well, almost. I have now threaded and treadled and completed a project and I am very satisfied with my experience. However, I do have a question or two for the hive.

My warp was for another text project. The threading order is very easy, but I made use of the Thread Assist function to keep me on track.

I chose to have the screen show 8 warp threads at a time. The Thread Assist not only keeps track of harnesses, but also of color changes in the warp. I did notice that I had to enter exactly the right amount of warp threads in my threading draft (wif). That way I didn’t have to start over on the screen. Also, the Thread Assist keeps track of where I left off when I start again after some time away.

When I finally got started weaving, there was definitely a learning curve with the Weaving function. Since I have and was using all 16 harnesses, the screen I was using could only show one line of the liftplan at a time. I’ll take you through a sequence of two picks.

This shows the “next” pick with the levers in the neutral position, i.e. not pulled. Blue is the color for the levers that I want to pull.

When I pull those levers, the magnets engage and then the screen changes to this, showing the levers that need to be lifted (in red), the levers that need to be pulled (blue) and the levers that remain unchanged (green). This pick consists of harnesses 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, and 16.

Next, the levers in red are lifted, and the ones in blue are pulled, joining the ones in green. This pick consists of harnesses 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, and 13.

Things happen fast, and you have to pay attention! Ask me how I know 🙂

So the above picture shows the beginning of my weaving and I was pretty proud of myself. I quit for the day and started weaving again the next day. Thinking that I could just start up again from where I left off, I continued with my routine and wove for about an hour. It wasn’t until I got up to advance the warp that I noticed the floats on the top. They are visible on the left side of the mat.

I was not watching the weaving, I was watching the screen and pulling the levers and skipped a pick in the sequence. It turns out that picking up where you left off is somewhat tricky! So, I began writing down the SEQ number (upper left corner) and the actual harness numbers of the next pick before shutting down the Tempo Treadle. Otherwise, I became very confused as to exactly where I was in the sequence.

I would love to hear from more experienced Tempo Treadle users (16 harnesses) who may have faced this situation as well. Do you have a fool proof method of knowing what the beginning pick is when starting a new session?

Meanwhile, I am still not satisfied with my text weaving. Going back to the font drawing board. Stay tuned…

Say hello to Tempo Treadle. I hope Tempo Treadle will become my new best friend when I am weaving on my Ashford Table Loom. It will keep me from pulling the wrong levers and hopefully speed up the weaving, as much as you can possible speed anything up, that is. Tempo Treadle arrived a few weeks ago and, between this and that, I haven’t got it completely up and running until now.

When it arrived, I immediately went to social media to find out what I could about setting it up on an Ashford 16 Harness table loom. It came with directions, but I am a very visual person, and I needed more photos than what I was getting. There are a few videos on You Tube by the Lofty Fiber folks (makers of Tempo Treadle). But the list of videos doesn’t cover all the looms that it is made for.

Therefore, I thought I would document my set up process and post it here for any Ashford Loom owners who might be wanting more photos.

The first thing I did was remove all the treadle number stickers that I had attached to the loom when I first got it. No apologies about the accumulated “patina” ;-).

Next, I attached the magnets to the levers. (In the photos the magnets are white. This confused me at first, because I can be very literal. As it happens, mine are black.)

Next, I attached the Tempo Treadle “holder” to the top of the loom behind the levers. The Tempo Treadle box itself fits right in. Here are front and side views.

The power source cord plugs in at the top and it is long enough to reach to my electrical outlet close by.

There is a small extension cord with a switch, which is helpful for turning Tempo Treadle on and off without having to just pull the plug in the wall.

There is a magnetic strip that attaches to the loom with adhesive just under the castle. Two connectors come out at the left and attach to connectors coming from the Tempo Treadle box.

A attaches to A and B attaches to B.

This is the finished setup.

And, this is what it looks like when you turn it on.

The Tempo Treadle comes with a mini memory card and two different readers that connect to your computer. I have tried both and they work just fine. I have put two wifs on the memory card and actually tried running through a treadling sequence, briefly. There will be a learning curve.

I am currently warping this loom for another text project, and will be taking photos as I go, so I will be posting about that experience … soonish.