You've probably heard a lot about ergonomically designed chairs and garden tools and other goodies. It's just as important to make sure your weaving area has been set up not only for space and efficiency, but also ergonomically.
One sneaky ergonomic thing is proper lighting. It doesn't matter what side of 40 you are, you will always benefit from good lighting - this can not only reduce eyestrain, it can also prevent back or neckache from leaning in at strange angles to be able to see what you're doing.
There are several key aspects to proper lighting.
* Paint your weaving and planning area a light neutral color. This allows maximum light in the room and prevents bounce-back of odd wall color on your project that can skew the colors that you see. (I shuddered when I read an article about someone who painted her studio with bright pinks - even on the ceiling!)
* use color adjusted bulbs where possible. For incandescents, use the 'Reveal' brand - these come in a variety of wattages and sizes, and can be found at Home Depot, Menards, and Target - and Target seems to have more selection than the others. These run a bit more than regular bulbs, but there is a definite difference when looking at colors. If you don't want to have Reveals throughout your entire weaving area, at least put them where you do your color planning and work with your fabrics or yarns.
Avoid inexpensive 'blue' fluorescents where possible, at least where you do your color planning. There are slightly more expensive fluorescents and halogens that have a better color spectrum - go to a store that specializes in lighting to find these.
* Use lamps and fixtures that can support a decent amount of wattage - this is more difficult than it should be, however. Seems like most lamps have a limit of 60 watts, and that just is not intense enough for fine work. About the only place I've found floor or table lamps that can support 100 watts or more is one of those specialty lighting stores. These lamps are a bit more expensive, but the difference is literally like day and night - and you can probably get by with just one. And never, ever use a bulb with wattage higher than the fixture is rated for - the wiring in the fixture isn't sized to handle the extra electrical load and bad things can happen (like melting the cord - very, very bad).
* The number of lumens is important (see the end of this article), but look at the lumens per bulb, not the total number of lumens per fixture. There's a big difference in the intensity of light put out by a single lamp with a 100 Watt bulb vs a lamp with multiple 60 Watt bulbs, even though the total number of lumens is greater for the lamp with multiple 60 Watt bulbs.
* Make sure your loom is properly lit with enough light and to avoid shadows - this may require multiple lights. One good way to do this is with track lighting. I have track on both the left and right sides of my loom with a light on either side to illuminate the warp beam side, and a much more intense set on either side to illuminate my fell line. The ones aimed at the fell line are positioned so that my head won't cast shadows, and the fact that there are two of them prevent shadows caused by my hands or the shuttle.
If track lighting isn't feasible, you can still accomplish the same thing by having a floor lamp on either side of your loom at the fell line - just remember to get lamps that can handle at least 100 watt bulbs.
I added a separate floor lamp on one side that had three lamps, but while this was enough to prevent some shadows, it was one of those limited to 60 watt bulbs, and the lighting is just too soft and diffuse.
The ones illuminating the warp beam are only 50 watt, but that's enough for me to be able to monitor what's going on back there. I started with 50 watt track lights for the fell line, but working with black warp and even with the additional floor lamp at my elbow, it was just not enough. Not only was I going nuts trying to see the black warp (and with double weave pickup, this is absolutely essential), I was getting back strain leaning closer to be able to see what I was doing.
So, I bought some new track lights for the fell line - these were 75 watt halogen floods, and wow - what a difference! Because I wanted maximum light, I got unfrosted bulbs. The light is a bit more harsh, but I can much more easily see that black warp, and I can weave for a longer period without an aching back.
Some esoteric information about lighting:
* one foot candle equals the amount of light from one candle striking an object one foot away from the candle (no, it doesn't really matter how big the candle is).
* Candlepower is a measurement of light at the source, not the target. Foot candles tell us how much of that light is directed at something we want to illuminate.
* A lumen is a measurement of how much light is present on a square meter - and foot-candles equal the amount of lumens on a square foot.
* lighting intensity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between light source and target. So, something one foot from a bulb gets four times more light than something two feet from the same bulb, and nine times more than something three feet from the bulb.
* Clear bulbs put out more lumens than frosted bulbs, but have more harsh lighting.
* Color adjusted bulbs attempt to match the spectrum of light put out by the sun to varying levels - and prices. These are available in incandescent, halogen, and fluorescents.
For standard frosted bulbs ("A" type), typical light outputs are:
60 Watt - 820 lumens
75 Watt - 1125 lumens
100 Watt - 1600 lumens
150 Watt - 2300 + lumens
Compare other styles of bulbs by looking at the amount of lumens each puts out.
