Weaving at home

During our weaving course I'd been thinking about buying myself a rigid heddle loom to weave on at home. My weaving teacher said that the Canberra Spinners and Weavers hire out equipment, and she'd ask them to see if there was any available - I might have to join but she would ask. So she came back with this - I am not hiring it but "borrowing" it, as apparently they don't really even want it on their books. It is not a fancy loom. It is as basic as you can get. I think it is home-made.

 

It was missing an apron rod, so I went down the hardware and bought some more dowel, and some thin skirting board for stick shuttles. My husband did some sawing and drilling and I did some sanding and bam! everything I need to weave. I warped it on the dining room table with the loom on an upturned washing basket. The wine is not compulsory (yes it is, it took about two hours while I figured everything out).

 The heddle kept moving about so I propped it up on a very large Peter F. Hamilton.

And for the rest of the week I've been weaving! The edges are much harder to keep straight than the nicer looms we had at class, and I can only do plain weave on this because it doesn't have shafts as such ... but I turned something from yarn to cloth. This is still quite amazing to me.

And here is the end result. A nice soft blue-toned scarf with a fringe. For the record (becaue I never write this down) this is done with a 4-ply baby wool on both warp and weft, 120 ends 2.5 metres long, with a 12 dpi heddle. I am well and truly addicted.