Disappointed...

The stand is here, and I spent the evening assembling it. I'm a bit disappointed in it, as it is not finished as well as I expected it to be, and I also thought it would be taller than it is. It is the exact same height as the temporary stand, and the supporting front arms do not let the loom go to a comfortable working angle for me (about 45° to me). DH will be drilling new holes in the arms so I can lower it further, and I might be rummaging in the wood shop this weekend for some blocks of wood to raise it up a bit. I was really hoping I would be able to sit in a real chair with a back, instead of on a footstool. A friend at work suggested hitting the yard sales for a wooden chair and cut the legs off, and that is an excellent idea so I will be keeping my eyes open for just such a chair. And I'll try my folding chair I use for spinning, just in case it is shorter than I think it is.

The good things about the stand are, if you are not a woodworker and don't look too close, it looks very nice, and of course matches the loom. It was easy to assemble as well. It's much lighter than the temp stand, which makes it way easier to move around. And I can put my feet on the crossbar to steady the stand while weaving, since the crossbar is firmly attached, which is much more comfortable (so far) than having to put my feet on the outside feet of the stand.

I'll be using clamps on the arms of the new stand for now, so I can get more of an angle on the loom. It is very uncomfortable for me to raise my arms and reach forward with any kind of weight - I get an awful pain in the back of my shoulders and my neck that can take days to go away. DH might get the new holes drilled next week, if I remember to remind him. :-)

I should have a new pic tomorrow, and some progress to report. I need to find and re-read my beginner books to remind myself what to do for the spacer before I start weaving again. And I'm still debating about starting over on the scarf on the 11" loom - I really need to sample. I could do that tonight - that shouldn't take long... (famous last words).

Up, up, and awaaay!

I did get some weaving in last night while listening to the Superman-athon on Sirius Radio's Radio Classics station (all old-time-radio, all the time - what fun!). I'm now up to where the spacer is going to be, so I'm going to re-read the instructions to refresh my memory before starting the spacer. I did move my loom from one room to another - that was quite a challenge, as I can't fold the loom on the temporary stand, plus I have two clamps on the bottom of the stand that stick out. And it's heavy - the stand itself is quite heavy; the loom itself isn't bad, but the two together would keep me from moving it very often.

But that should change today, as according the UPS website, my Kromski stand is here! Along with the stand there should be a 12-dent heddle and a couple of tubes of 8/2 yarn to try my hand at making towels, once I finish the place mats. Hopefully I will have pics to share tomorrow night or Saturday morning.

It was too late to read the weaving books since I did some dreaded housework as well; thankfully the weekend is coming. I think on Saturday, instead of the usual half-housework/garden & half-crafty plan o' the day, I will do a tiny-bit-of-gardening & mostly-crafty day, with different projects/crafts rotating. I really need to get on the prayer shawl I'm making for a friend's daughter, and I have a TON of other projects, including the scarf on the other loom that I'm still debating starting over on, so I think I'll use a timer to keep from doing just one project and maybe - just maybe - I will get something almost-done. ;-D

Nope...

I didn't get to weave last night either. Have I mentioned that I detest shopping (unless it's for fibery things, and with one decent LYS and no spinning/weaving stores in town there's not much to choose from)? Shopping just plumb wears me out.

I did get a booklet called Cardboard Weaving (I think) from an eBayer yesterday, but didn't get too far in it yet. It's put out by the same folks who did Cookbook Weaving so I figured it was a safe bet. I'll review it when I get through it. I also have a book named "Weaving Primer" from the library to review - another older book that looks like a good general reference book to have on hand. IIRC, it is mostly for inkle / rigid heddle / two-harness weaving.

Weaving is on the agenda for tonight - don't want to skip too many days. I'm also considering undoing the scarf on the 11" loom, and replacing the warp with something else. I'm using Red Heart worsted acrylic for that warp, and I think that it might be the biggest problem in the thickness of the web. Sure wouldn't hurt me to practice warping, though I really hate to start over.

My stand should be here tomorrow - YIPPEE!

No weaving last night...

Actually I didn't do anything, other than walk the dog and reload the dishwasher. Since I work full-time, Monday is not my favorite day of the week and I rarely do anything on Mondays. It was, however, a beautiful day for dogwalking. :-D

Tuesday is Shopping Day, but hopefully I will be home early enough to throw a couple of picks, and maybe get to the spacer part.

We're weaving now!

I did pretty well today - I'm up to about 15" on the piece so far, in only about an hour of "not paying full attention" weaving. Since I'm doing placemats, 17" is about the right length so I'll aim for that. Then I'm going to weave a 'spacer' of 5" (using one strand of carpet warp), just so my fumble-fingers have enough warp to manipulate without causing it all to come undone when I'm cutting them apart. So far, the stand is working ok, but I have to have my feet on it or I can't beat the weft nor put the shed in the down position.

I am just amazed that using black for weft makes the blue and red of the warp really stand out - I never would've expected that affect.


The details of how I am doing this - so I don't forget later:

I'm doing 2 'picks' (or shots) of worsted weight cotton per shed. I'm using two separate shuttles, and after each pick I beat the weft in - so I pass the shuttle through on the upshed, beat, pass the 2nd shuttle through still on the upshed, beat. (If I don't beat on each pick, I don't get as tight nor even thread.) Move the heddle to the downshed position, rinse, lather, repeat. I always use the same shuttle first, as that gives me almost a bit of a scallop along the edge, and the yarn crosses over the other shuttle's yarn. To keep things straight, I always lay the first shuttle closest to me on my lap, and the second shuttle lays closer to my knees. This also seems to help me not get everything all tangled up (as much).

Also, I'm putting a pin in the web every 4 inches, so I know how much is woven. I'm using a tape measure, but a ruler would work too. The available working area seems a bit short on this loom, so it doesn't take long before the warp needs to be advanced, and it would be easy to lose track of how much you've woven.


I need to look for my shorter shuttle(s) for the 20" loom, as waving those long Kromski shuttles about is kind of dangerous, and a warp this 'narrow' doesn't need such long shuttles. I did buy some slats at Lowe's, so I can make shorter shuttles after hubby runs them through the planer. A big advantage of having the Harp on a stand is that I can adjust the loom's placement to where I'm not as likely to whack hubby or a dog as they pass through the room. :-D

I ordered the Kromski stand yesterday, plus the 12-dent heddle (I figured I might as well - what's another $33?), and hopefully they will be here Friday.

Well, that's not going to work...

I've got the Kromski on the stand for now, but it's not going to work. Dh designed the stand for much smaller and lighter looms, and I'm trying to use holes already in the loom instead of drilling new ones. I can't get the side screws tight enough to hold the loom in place, because it is too off-balance - either the front or the back has too much weight, depending on which set of holes I'm using. Also, it's way too low - I have to sit on a footstool to use it. Sorry for the fuzzy picture - I had to shoot fast to avoid the dog that kept wandering into the scene. :-)

Guess I'll spring for the Kromski stand (OUCH). (Of course, we could keep tinkering, but we'd probably end up spending more trying to make this stand work than I will for the Kromski stand.) At least the loom is off the kitchen table now - and this setup should work for now. Wonder if anyone has the Kromski stand cheaper....

I should be getting some weaving in soon, but I'm going to put a 'popcorn movie' on, so will wait until I finish off the popcorn and the movie. :-)

The answers to a few of my questions...

Just a short post tonight, as my brain is fuzzy from the workweek.

It's not a 'shot' or a 'throw', it's a 'pick' when you send the shuttle through.

Either winding two strands on one shuttle or one strand on two separate shuttles will work. Two strands/one shuttle has a disadvantage of possibly twisting the yarns while weaving. If that won't bother you, then there's nothing to worry about. One strand/two shuttles - you can run into that uncoordination thing I mentioned.

And I did manage to buy hardware for the stand, plus a couple of short pieces of oak to use to support this huge loom on the front as well, like the stand Kromski sells. Might not get very far on it this weekend, but at least I have the stuff now.

That's it for tonight. Tomorrow morning it's garden- and house-work, but then the rest of the day is for weaving (I hope!). :-D

Good night!

Headin' towards the weekend...

I didn't get a lot of weaving in last night, but did manage to 'unweave' the experimental bits that were on the Kromski, and started weaving with Sugar & Cream worsted weight cotton at two shots (throws?) per shed. Much, much better.

Of course, after I started I wondered if I was supposed to do this like 2-stranded knitting, where you knit 2 strands at the same time (for weaving, two strands on 1 shuttle).

Or, should I be using 2 shuttles, 1 strand per shuttle (my current method)? The only thing I don't like about this method is that it is not very smooth-going, especially with such long shuttles, and with me being uncoordinated I foresee a tangled mess. :-P

Or, should I be pulling a loop through and keeping the shuttle or yarn on the same side the whole time (which, after thinking about it, doesn't sound like a good idea - the side opposite the shuttle would never get it's threads locked in on the outermost warp?)?

I did get a little over an inch woven, and discovered a method whereby I can weave in the living room with that huge loom. For my 11" loom, I sit on my bed and rest the back beam on an on-edge pillow, so the loom is at about a 45 degree angle - much more convenient for me and doesn't hurt my back. I did something similar with the Kromski, only using one of my knitting stands and sitting on the floor. That is not the best way, as the back beam's warp was resting on the stand, plus the cloth beam sitting on the floor was a bit too low for long-time comfort, but I'll figure out a better solution as I work with it. I would like to get the loom off the kitchen table though, so I probably ought to work on the stand. :-) Of course, I didn't think to check what size screws & washers I will need, so most of the actual fixing will have to wait til tomorrow (assuming I remember to check for hardware sizes tonight).

Looming on...

Last night I intended to take some of the experimental weft off the Kromski, so I could re-weave with other practice weft. Instead, I decided to work on the scarf that's on the 11" loom.

So far my challenge has been getting the edges even, but I'm getting better and the project seems to move along relatively quickly, so it keeps me interested. I'm using Tahki Shannon yarn, originally purchased for a knitted scarf. I quickly discovered that I hated knitting with it (snaggy, sticks to itself) so figured weaving was worth a shot since this is relatively pricey yarn for me. For warp I'm using a cheap acrylic. So I am doing what I believe is called a 'weft-faced plain weave' - I'm covering up the warp with the weft, and just doing the usual over-and-under weaving. Good practice.

Something I noticed last night though, is that the finished 'cloth' is taking up quite a bit of room on the cloth beam, and I might not have enough room to do a very long scarf.

I'll be posting a close-up picture later, once my e-mail program starts working again (darn Yahoo!).


Well, it took longer than my e-mail coming back on-line - Kodak still hasn't sent to me. But I'm home now, so here it is.

Monday

Yep, I'm good at titles. :-)

No weaving tonight. I did try to put the Kromski on the unfinished loom stand DH built, but the Kromski is too big for the stand's current configuration (probably should've just bought the Kromski stand).

I was able to look closer at my beginning weaving books this weekend; I really like how Cookbook Weaving (by Amy Ansell) is laid out. For the rank beginner that can't take classes, this is the book. It tells you what yarn to use where, and even how long each step should take. It has nice large drawings, and seems to explain the projects pretty thoroughly. It's from the 70s, so many of the projects are dated, but I think most could be updated with just a tiny bit of creativity, and even if not, the projects would be good practice - and most of them are small. If I had to pick another book, the Ashford Book of Rigid Heddle Weaving, though not quite as 'spelled out' as Cookbook Weaving, is close and would be my second choice. I think Betty Davenport's Hands On Rigid Heddle Weaving will be for when I get a little bit of experience and know enough to start wanting to modify my projects.

Though I didn't take Deborah Chandler's Learning to Weave with me, I've looked at it many times. It is too oriented to multi-harness weaving for this rank beginner to get much out of it - yet. Eventually it will probably be more helpful.

That's all for weaving tonight. I have a non-crafty book due back to the library soon, so I'm off to finish it.

Good night!

Another day...

another loom. This is my 11" Mattel - a toy. The design leaves a lot to be desired - the front and back beams just rest in cutouts, and pop out regularly. :-( Hair ties solved that problem, but they are a bit of a pain.

I didn't get any loomy stuff done last night, and probably won't tonight either. I'll be out of town for the weekend, so I'm going to take my RH books along to study a bit (The Ashford Book of Rigid Heddle Weaving, Betty Davenport's Hands-On Rigid Heddle Weaving, Step-by-Step Guide to Weaving on a Rigid Heddle Loom...) and an easy knitting project - too much hassle to take the new loom, and I don't think I even want to take the smaller one though I may still change my mind as I would like to get that project finished. I won't have a lot of study time, but hopefully some of the info in these books will sink in, and I will return smarter than when I left.

My weaving GF told me that the reason I wasn't getting the results I expected (a cloth-like fabric, instead of an open-weave fabric), was that my sett wasn't quite right - meaning either my warp or my weft (or both) should've been done with a heavier yarn than the 8/4 cotton I used. She also said that 8/4 is normally used only for rugs (hence the name "carpet warp" ) and I should use 8/2 if I want to try to do towels. Not sure how 8/2 will work with a 10-dent heddle, but I'll be finding out eventually. So I found some black ww cotton to try for a thicker weft at Hobby Lobby, and will be trying both one- and two-shots of that once I get back.

Have a safe weekend, everyone!

Learning to Weave on a Rigid Heddle Loom

Welcome to my first blogging attempt! Here I plan to write mostly about my attempts to learn - pretty much on my own - weaving on a rigid heddle loom. I have 5 RHs, in various sizes - the latest a 24" Kromski Harp received 5 days ago. I've started projects on two of the other RHs, but haven't finished anything yet (a very annoying character flaw). I also have the Kromski warped, and I've done some practice 'throws' on it, but have discovered I'm not using the right yarn for the results I wanted. Guess I should've ordered the 12-dent heddle with it, as I thought I'd be able to do finer stuff. Just one of the many lessons the Kromski is going to teach me.