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!