My loom

And here is a picture of my loom - it is quite an ancient structure, but seems in very good working order and all the bits and bobs are in the right place. It feels nice to work with, and I know this after threading and threading and threading ... I had to move the string heddles around too so I removed springs and fiddled around with it. Time consuming but the weaving instructor calls it "getting to know your loom" and it is apparently very important! I'm already finding it weaves a bit softer than the other ones; I need to keep the tension a bit looser. Weird that something so inanimate can have such a personality.

No, it doesn't come with an alarm clock, I just put it up there so I could see it from the bed. I had to put the loom on the table in the bedroom because it won't fit in the sewing room. I brought it home to do the threading so I could catch up a bit. This is two threads used as one for the warp (and weft) - there was a mystery thread in the cupboard that we quite liked, but it wasn't strong enough so I've used it with a cream cotton. And then there are finer cream cotton for the tie down warp threads for the supplementary weft. A bit fiddly but I'm all about the learnings (complete lie, I'm all about the easiest way to do anything, but I have learnt to keep that in check while taking courses as often I do indeed learn something, who would have thought it).

We think the mystery thread might be a silk because it has that slubbiness and slightly sticky feel of silk. It is certainly more interesting than a plain cotton in look and feel. I took it back in on Wednesday and started doing the supplementary pattern of abstract rectangles. They are quite see-through on the background weave, so it looks pale and interesting. Hard to explain, I'll take more photos.