weaving

quite some time ago, my auntie lucy gave me a loom. she had gotten it from somebody, played with it some and had decided she was over it. then it sat in my room for a while. then it sat in the basement for an even longer while.

the problem was that it was pretty crappy. the reed was rusty, the legs were wobbly, the ratchet had come loose from the beam and a lot of the strings were all chewed up. and who wants to learn a new process when you can't tell if the troubles are your mistakes or the machine's?

but i really did want to give weaving a try. for a while i thought i would build a new loom. but how could i design something for a process i had never tried?

so finally i figured it out. i tuned up the old one well enough to be comfortable learning on it- bought a new reed, made new legs and replaced a lot of strings and rusty hardware- and then i warped it (that means i tied it all up and got it ready to weave).

all i've made so far is this test/practice run out of cotton warp. it is somewhat uneven and has some tension and selvedge issues, but the pattern is consistent and, hey, it's a piece of fabric. that i made. and that is really cool. (unfortunately it is about 6 inches short of being a scarf.)

and now that i have a little experience and have found a lot of little issues with this loom, i think i might build my own. but i think i will do a little more practicing first.