Hello! I am so excited to write this post, because it’s the post I wanted to write a couple of weeks ago. If you have followed me for any amount of time, you know that I am obsessed with two things – fabric and learning new things. And now, I’m learning how to make fabric!

OK, that might be a tad overly dramatic, or at the very least, overstating things. For quite some time now, I’ve been interested in learning how to weave fabric. I came across the idea a few years ago when someone said in her blog that she was “spinning.” At first, I thought she meant she was talking about the cycling obsession that’s cropped up in the last few years, but no … she meant she was making yarn. That intrigued me, but it didn’t really interest me too much, because while I am a fiber addict, and I have more than my fair share of yarn (like, a lot more, for as little as I’ve done with it over the years), I haven’t really been very good at crochet and knitting. I crochet ok, and I knit hardly at all. A further examination of her blog showed that she wasn’t spinning just for knitting and crochet, but she was using her spun fibers to weave. Now THAT got my attention. The idea of being able to make my own fabric for any reason is something I can get behind.

Still, I wasn’t too keen to take up yet another expensive hobby, since I already spend so much on quilting. I would think about it on occasion, but dismiss the idea as insane, because really … how could I even consider taking up something I know absolutely nothing about that would cost so much?

Fast forward a few years, and I joined my current employer. They have this nifty wellness plan where you can earn points that will give you rewards. One of the rewards is lower health insurance premiums, but you also can trade your points in for gift cards to various retailers. Retailers like Amazon, who carries weaving looms. Gift cards that can be $100 – $150 in value, which suddenly makes purchasing a weaving loom a little more attractive …

Ummmmmmmmmmm ….

So … yeeaaaaaahhhh … that happened. It’s an Ashford SampleIt 16″ rigid heddle loom. I ordered it at the end of May, and then just before Bluprint shut down the ability to buy anything else from them, I took the risk and purchased the Startup Library: Rigid Heddle Weaving class taught by Deborah Jarchow. I finally received my loom last week. We got it put together (ok, Chris put it together while I watched; the instructions weren’t all that great, honestly, or I would have had it together myself the first night it arrived), and now I’m learning plain weave. I went to my local Joann’s and bought some lightweight (DK) cotton yarn for this trial. Surprisingly, I do have some lightweight cotton yarn in my stash, but not enough for this project, if that’s what you want to call it. I also bought yarn for the first real project of the class – a small bag.

What I am really excited to learn is how to make kitchen towels. Don’t even bother asking why, because I don’t really know. I mean, I can make kitchen towels all day long with my sewing machine, and it’s probably cheaper to do that. Cheaper still to go buy some tea towels and then put some cute embroidery on them. But I love the idea of weaving my own kitchen towels. I’ve been thinking that after I weave them, it might be fun to add some embroidery to them. Last night, I even found a woman who weaves her own cloth then uses it to make clothing. I’m not saying I would do that, but the idea of being able to do it is intriguing …

Not to mention that being able to weave one’s own fabric is a great way to prepare for the zombie apocalypse. It might even give you something to barter with after the zombies take over and there’s only a few of you trying to scrape out a living … j/k

Or maybe I’m not. Hmmmm …

 

 

In all my reading before the loom got here, I found several people who said that once you get past the initial cost of setting up for spinning, it’s much cheaper to spin your yarn than purchase it ready to use. Now, I am really bad about just jumping off in to something and going full steam ahead and then not sticking with something. It’s part of my ADD nature, I think, so I’m working to keep myself from diving off the deep end and start looking for spinning wheels and other things. Right now, I just want to learn to weave and enjoy the process, and see if this is something I think I might want to pursue long term. My whole purpose in buying the loom in the first place is to keep my hands busy at night so I’m not eating the whole kitchen every evening, so I just want to see how things go before I spend much more on this new hobby.

So far, though, I am liking this new hobby. Plain weave lets me watch tv while working mindlessly on a project. While some people consider plain weave to be boring, I think it’s quite beautiful.

Sure, there’s a lot of patterns and designs that can be made, but for now, I’m interested only in learning plain weave. Using variegated yarns, or yards of different colors, will yield some beautiful results. Using plain weave, I can learn to make all sorts of things. And I’m really very excited about all of them.

One thing I’ve always known, but is glaringly obvious with weaving, is that reading alone does NOT tell you everything you need to know about doing something. Also, watching videos isn’t always  going to help when you start to actually do something.

Take warping the loom, for example. I watched several videos on loom warping, including a class on Bluprint, but I still didn’t get my warp exactly right.

 

See those two loops that are wrapping around the heddle? Yeah, it’s not supposed to do that. I missed getting it on the back bar correctly, and didn’t notice it until it was too late. I ended up cutting that out, and moving the threads over. Maybe that’s not how it should have been done, but that’s how I did it. If this had been anything more than a practice piece, and my first weaving ever, I would have done some research on how to fix it, but as it was, it just wasn’t important this time.

Something else I’ve learned is that you can most definitely put too much tension on a warp. One of my threads broke about halfway through my piece. I know it can be fixed, and I even know how it can be fixed, but again, this is just a practice piece and my main focus was trying to understand the basics of warping and then producing a plain weave piece of fabric. And that is exactly what I’m accomplishing with it.

I’ve also learned that neatness does matter when warping a loom. See those threads that are crossed there? Yeah, they are causing me some issues with tension. I didn’t think about it when I was warping, but now that I’m actually weaving, I can see where and how they cause trouble. To be fair to myself, though, that wasn’t actually something that was pointed out in the videos I watched on warping a loom, even in the Bluprint class. But all those crossed threads are making a huge difference.

Also, my table is all wrong for this particular application. Great dining table, terrible warping table.

I had to stop frequently for back breaks, because bending over the entire time was excruciating. Also, I wasn’t exactly excited about having to clamp the frame and the warping peg on my dining table, risking scratching it. If you look closely, you will see placemats under both. But worry not, fair citizens of the Interwebs, I have a solution (you knew I was going to say that, didn’t you)! I have an IKEA Linnmon table top that isn’t being used, and it’s a little more than 78″ long. I also have the adjustable legs for it, so I can make it about 38″ high. That should be about perfect for warping. I don’t have a place to leave it set up indefinitely, but I can set it up in my bedroom whenever I’m ready to warp the loom.

One other thing I have found is that it’s important to have tools that work with you and for you. Earlier, I said that I don’t want to jump off the deep end and starting buying all the things for weaving, but I did order a boat shuttle and some bobbins when I placed an order for some yarn for one of the Bluprint class projects – kitchen towels using 8/2 unmercerized cotton. I can sit here for weeks making samples, but I really want to make actual things. Like I said earlier, the Bluprint class has a project for a little bag. There’s also a scarf. I’m on the fence about the bag, though I may make it for practice. I’m sort of excited about the scarf, though, and the kitchen towels are the type of thing that enticed me to try weaving in the first place.

I will say, this is a GREAT way to keep my hands busy at night, and I love all the possibilities of what I can do with it. I have been looking at different patterns and ideas, and I have to say that I’m seriously considering making a blanket with the rigid heddle loom in plain weave. I can make it in panels and then attach them together.

I have a feeling this is the start of a beautiful friendship …