Denise,
Have you had time to make a machine or had time to play with rope yet. I would love to get an update.
Gwen
I found that a hair braider you can buy in the stores for $15 works well for some of the rope work. Other than that, I've been distracted by getting fleece done and helping my mom recover from double knee replacement.
The hair braider twists the hair (rope strands or warp threads) in one direction then the other. I use it to twist fringe on my weaving as well. I saw a battery operated one at Woodland Woolworks for $40 made for weavers. Mine is a cheap Conair. I'll use it till it breaks.
Denise
This should be posted with equipment but I wanted it emailed to as many as possible.
This last weekend at Conference of Northern California Handweavers (CNCH) Alden Amos had three of his Rope Jacks for demonstrating. He was our keynote speaker Saturday night. Really I should say keynote teacher/demonstrator as he is a man of few words. He is a hands on teacher. We made rope out of anything we could get our hands on: yarn, roving, hemp, fabric, cord... A rope jack is a proper rope making machine and it is increadible. It is at least a three person job and in some cases when making a "4 strand" rope 4 or 5 people make it more managable. When I refer to "strand" (and I do not know if that is the proper term), each strand can be made up of umpteen fiberous things such as yarn, fabric, other ropes, cords, roving.
The ropes were fun to make, beautiful and unbelievably strong. And they are dense. Some more dense than my needs.
My rope jack is on order with Alden. I will be lucky to get it in the next year along with the cherry banjo charkha I must, must have for my cotton study coming up next year!
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