I bought my new loom just about a month ago. In the weeks following bringing it home from LA, my husband spent a few hours on and off cleaning the light rust off of the heddles and the shafts.
While my husband was doing the cleaning, Yuko (my "student" at the Weaving Barn) and I were planning some future projects and we chose to start with two - a color gamp twill scarf using bamboo on 4 shafts and then cotton waffle weave kitchen towels on 4 or 8 shafts. Then we placed our BIG order with Halcyon yarn and waited for our cones to arrive. The 2 ounce min-cones arrived 2 weeks ago but some of the cotton is on back order which was ok since we were planning on weaving the scarves first.
Yuko and I spent a Saturday afternoon playing with color theory and what order we would use the colors (we both chose different colors than were in the pattern), then winding our warps for the Color Gamp Twill scarves. Since we are using 8/2 bamboo, there are 24 e.p.i. and across the scarf a total of 272 ends and 8 colors.
The next day, Sunday I started to wind the warp on to my loom. The first issue I ran across is that the lease sticks are too narrow to fit inside the loom BUT not wide enough to sit fully on the loom frame. I eventually, after much struggling, had to tape them together off center so I could tape it to the frame and wind it onto the back beam. Once the beaming was done I was able to thread the open top heddles and then slay the reed and then tie onto the front beam. This entire process took over 6 hours.
I did not touch the loom during the week because I figured once I got started, I would not go to bed early and I would be dead the next day at work - not that it really mattered but a girl needs her rest.
When I got home that Friday, I started to check the threading of the heddles and reed. The scarf has a 6 inch fringe so I used paper to help spread the warp - I used 3 sections of heavy paper folded several times to be about 2 inches. I lifted every other shaft to give me plain weave and that is when I found my mistakes. I had some threads that had popped out of the heddles which are open at the top; some threads were in two heddles; others were threaded on the wrong shaft. Sorting all of this out took another 5 hours because I checked every single thread.
Last night, I actually wove after I got home from the barn. I wove in the the bottom selvage and the first color. Just another 60 inches to go.
While my husband was doing the cleaning, Yuko (my "student" at the Weaving Barn) and I were planning some future projects and we chose to start with two - a color gamp twill scarf using bamboo on 4 shafts and then cotton waffle weave kitchen towels on 4 or 8 shafts. Then we placed our BIG order with Halcyon yarn and waited for our cones to arrive. The 2 ounce min-cones arrived 2 weeks ago but some of the cotton is on back order which was ok since we were planning on weaving the scarves first.
Yuko and I spent a Saturday afternoon playing with color theory and what order we would use the colors (we both chose different colors than were in the pattern), then winding our warps for the Color Gamp Twill scarves. Since we are using 8/2 bamboo, there are 24 e.p.i. and across the scarf a total of 272 ends and 8 colors.
The next day, Sunday I started to wind the warp on to my loom. The first issue I ran across is that the lease sticks are too narrow to fit inside the loom BUT not wide enough to sit fully on the loom frame. I eventually, after much struggling, had to tape them together off center so I could tape it to the frame and wind it onto the back beam. Once the beaming was done I was able to thread the open top heddles and then slay the reed and then tie onto the front beam. This entire process took over 6 hours.
I did not touch the loom during the week because I figured once I got started, I would not go to bed early and I would be dead the next day at work - not that it really mattered but a girl needs her rest.
When I got home that Friday, I started to check the threading of the heddles and reed. The scarf has a 6 inch fringe so I used paper to help spread the warp - I used 3 sections of heavy paper folded several times to be about 2 inches. I lifted every other shaft to give me plain weave and that is when I found my mistakes. I had some threads that had popped out of the heddles which are open at the top; some threads were in two heddles; others were threaded on the wrong shaft. Sorting all of this out took another 5 hours because I checked every single thread.
Last night, I actually wove after I got home from the barn. I wove in the the bottom selvage and the first color. Just another 60 inches to go.
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