I haven't been weaving for very long. I received my first loom for my birthday 2 years ago. It is a Schacht Cricket ridged heddle loom, the 15" wide one. My husband bought it for me.
I quickly got started after I returned from an unexpected trip to Kansas. I started with the yarn and scarf pattern that came with the loom. I learned to warp the loom, load a shuttle and beat the weft. An entire new language to learn and I loved every minute of it. I did everything the directions asked, without questioning. I had no one to question, I knew no other weavers at the time. I rolled waxed paper with the warp and tied the ends to the apron bars just as directed. The scarf i made from that warp is definitely a first piece but turned out nice enough. One
If I knew no other weavers, then why did I start weaving? Because I follow Franklin Habit on Instagram and read his blog regularly. He wove a hound's-tooth scarf and said it was easy, so I had to do it too.
That was my second weaving project. Franklin goes through how to pick out yarn for this project in his blog post How to.... I did that I ended up choosing a pink and a purple in Cascade 220 superwash in worsted weight. I followed the easy pattern, using 2 colors on 2 different shuttles and guess what?!? It worked!!! I was so excited and I loved the finished piece, Mom did too. Once again I followed the directions on warping and all from the booklet and added what Franklin said to do. Hounds tooth
Some time passed, I warp the loom again for a dish towel. A much shorter project so I just sit and cut each warp thread individually and then place them. I did tie them properly, they weren't truly long enough however for the project. I loaded a shuttle any way and took it with me. It was a demo for VBS that summer. We were doing a medieval theme and one of the topics was tapestries, so... Yeah you get it. It worked fine for the demo. I ran out of warp way before the project was finished and it all just sat and sat and sat some more.
The end of that same summer I was doing a spinning demo at the Arapahoe County Fair. A retired couple came up and asked if I weave. I said "I am learning and have a small loom at home." They said "Wonderful. How would like to have a 4 harness floor loom?" "That would be great, I even have the space." I replied. "Excellent. Let me give you my number, you can come and pick it up and it's yours."
So I did. That was over a year ago. I am still somewhat intimidated by it. I have met 2 weavers now though. One has been doing 4 harness for a while and the other is just a bit ahead of me and warped her 4 harness for the first time just last month.
I still like my ridged heddle. With confidence this time, I put my 3rd warp on the loom. A larger scarf. The pattern was in a goodie bag Yarn Fest 2018. Pattern I decided to use some hand spun yarn that I had. The yarn is the fine wool and yak blend that I spoke of in my spinning installment for this month Yarn. I won't go in to a lot of detail here because of that. The yarn was a 2 ply. Some thinner and some thicker; from a light sock to a nice DK. One of the strands was variegated and the other strand was either rose or forest. The different weights of yarn didn't make much difference in the overall finished piece.
I measured the warp properly this time, by the book. When I went to roll the waxed paper in, I found out I didn't have enough, but I rolled up the warp any way. BIG MISTAKE! I now FULLY understand the importance of the paper between the warp layers and I won't be making that mistake again. I went ahead and finished the scarf. It could have come out so much better. There is a lot of color changing in this pattern. No problem as long as I can carry the color, but sometimes that was too far and I just cut it. I left an end hanging, not ever having read or asked how to deal with ends, just thinking that they will be taken care of in the fulling process. They weren't.
Carry the yarn did work out though. This was something I just did by instinct. When I was finished with a color, I set its shuttle aside and picked up the next one. When I got to a pick that was one the same side as the color being carried, I made sure to wrap the weft yarn around the yarn being carried before I did the next pick. This made the yarn get carried up the side of the scarf. This worked out nicely for about 4-6 picks on one side. If it was farther than that, I would break the yarn off and start again. Finished Scarf
I have since read about how to do ends properly and am going to the store this week to get waxed paper. My goal is to warp on some kitchen towels to match some of the dishcloths I have knit this year.
I love weaving and will keep trying new things. Next month I hope to have a dish towel or 2 to show and maybe some card weaving adventures too!
No comments:
Post a Comment