My friend Marcia - of The Attic - formerly known as Spinnerella's Attic - has moved on from knitting and spinning to weaving. So when I posted about my new Schacht Spindle rigid heddle loom - she reached out to me with all sorts of tips and suggestions. She came over last week and loaned me some books, shuttles, pick-up sticks and a rigid heddle backstrap loom. These will give me a chance to learn some more and figure out which type of shuttles I like the best.
Plus we shared many lovely stories. I wish I had taken a picture of all of Marcia's lovely handwoven towels, table runners, classroom projects and more. They were simply stunning. Please visit her blog and take a look at her lovely projects. Don't forget to ooh and ahh over her amazing weaving studio!
These books have some great ideas for me... but Marcia correctly noted that there are some great projects for teaching youth. These will definitely be put to use in my Textile Merit Badge class.
Finally, I ordered three books online. (Note to self - do NOT go online looking for items late at night when you can't sleep!) These are all fantastic reference books and I can hardly wait to put them to use.
In the meantime, I cleaned, oiled and polished my loom. I let it dry overnight and buffed it again.
It appears to be a Schacht Spindle Rigid Heddle Loom - 20" from the 1970s.
After looking through all those books, looking at a gazillion YouTube weaving videos, and getting my loom cleaned - I was finally ready to pick a project and warp my loom. I decided to weave a red oversize mat for this odd little place in my kitchen.
I picked out some red yarn from my stash that matched the red backsplash in my kitchen.
And because I do everything at top speed, I managed to warp my loom in about 45 minutes. It was at this point that I realized I had warped my loom BACKWARDS!
Can you just feel the blood pressure rising? Are you in tears for me? (You should be!)
I spent the next four hours unthreading my loom and rewarping it very, very, very carefully. It was an unmitigated disaster. I was tired. I was cranky. My back hurt.
I really should have cut all this yarn, run to my LYS, purchased new red fingering weight yarn and been done with it. I would have saved myself the aggravation, heartache and backache. Some things in life really have to be learned the hard way, though!
But finally, all was done and ready for weaving. But by dinner time, I was done for the day. So I folded the loom and set it aside for the weekend.
Otis thinks that next time I will have learned my lesson and will warp this loom lickety-split!
