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Knitting is a gateway drug. Spinning, even more so. You end up with piles and piles of beautiful hand-spun yarn in your stash but rarely enough of any one yarn to make anything larger than a scarf or hat from. And then there are art yarns – bulky, twisty, textured, beehived, beautiful, but hell to try to knit or crochet with. Or it’s gorgeous, but just not quite right to knit, so it sits there in your stash. Staring at you. Well… have you considered weaving? WEAVING HISTORY Wikipedia describes weaving as the process of creating fabric using a loom to interlace two sets of threads at right angles to each other: the warp which runs longitudinally and the weft that crosses it. There are some indications that weaving was already known in the Paleolithic era and by biblical times had spread through all the large civilization centers. Like the earliest spinners, weavers of that time had only crude looms and tools which were extremely labor intensive. The first looms needed two people to create the shed, while a third was required to pass the warp thread through the opening. OKAY, BUT WHAT’S A LOOM?  At its simplest, a loom is just a frame threaded with string. You may have had a potholder loom or “zoom loom” as a kid. There are knitting looms also, but we’re going to focus on the two most commonly used by hand weavers today, floor looms and rigid heddles. BUT WHAT CAN I MAKE WITH THIS? The width of your loom is the main constraint on what you can make. My loom in the picture above is a counterbalance 4-harness, with a 20” weaving width and an 8-dent reed (8 spaces to the inch). So I’m going to be limited to scarves, table runners, placemats, kitchen towels and the like once I finally figure out what I’m doing. PARTS OF A FLOOR LOOM  The warp threads run longitudinally, and are tied onto the loom’s front roller (exact terminology varies but it’s the bit under the breast beam) and threaded through a reed, which spaces them out and holds them in place. They are then threaded through heddles which hang in a set of shafts or harnesses that are usually suspended from the center of the loom, called the castle. The threads then are tied onto the back of the loom and cranked onto a back roller to put the entire warp under tension. The harnesses are tied to treadles which raise or lower one or more of the harnesses when pressed, and consequently lifting or lowering the warp threads that are threaded through the heddles on that harness. This creates the shed, the space where the weft thread is passed through the two sets of warp threads. Once you’ve passed the weft thread through the space, step off the treadle to return all the warp threads to neutral, and pull back on the beater to pack the weft down to the bottom of the warp. Keep doing this and eventually you have fabric. It’s complicated, but it makes more sense when you see it in action. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMxb8jx7aLM FLOOR LOOMS  Floor looms generally are not portable – they are usually made from solid wood, so they’re heavy, take up a LOT of space (although there are some folding frame looms) and last for years. Looms are often handed down from veteran weavers to There are two main types of floor looms: Counterbalance and Countermarch. In both countermarch and counterbalance looms the warp starts off in the center of the shed at rest, and the threads go both up and down to open the shed. The difference between the two loom types is in the way this happens. On a counterbalance loom, the shafts are connected to each other via pulleys or jacks above the shafts. When you step on a treadle, one shaft is pulled down, and the connected shaft is therefore pulled up. So, for most counterbalance looms, the same number of shafts always goes up as goes down, and the combinations of shafts you can raise or lower depends on which shaft is connected to which. Counterbalance looms are limited as to shaft number (usually four) and possible sheds, hence pattern possibilities. On a countermarch loom, every treadle is connected to a lamm below the shafts. There are two sets of lamms for every shaft, one that will make it go down, one that will make it go up (via cords and jacks above the shafts). The drawback is that you have to tie every shaft to every treadle, either to make the shaft go up or go down. If you don’t, the shaft won’t move at all and its threads will remain in the middle of the shed. Countermarch looms are time-consuming to tie up, but the advantage is that you have more freedom in the combinations of shafts you can raise or lower than you do with a counterbalance loom. RIGID HEDDLE LOOMS  Rigid heddle looms are far less complicated and can get beginning weavers started quickly, easily and require a much smaller investment in time and money. They come in various widths, and I have seen them up to 32” weaving width. You can weave with them on an optional floor stand, a table or probably even in your lap in a pinch. They’re lightweight and portable and take up far less space than a floor loom. Most come with just one heddle, which is also your reed and your beater but can be expanded to two or more. THIS IS A TERRIBLE OP AND YOU SOUND LIKE YOU DON’T’ KNOW MUCH ABOUT THIS. I really don’t. I’m just starting to learn how to weave and as you can see, I’m already making mistakes:  The first few gold warp threads on the left are threaded wrong, and my weft is all wavy, and let’s pretend we don’t see how ragged my edges are.  It’s also my first OP and it’s already ridiculously long. But there are tons of online resources (to The Google!) and over 100 Ravelry weaving groups. Here are a couple more: Weaving Today Weavolution So, do you weave and can you lend any advice for those of us trying to learn? What’s on YOUR loom, Goon?
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Feb 5, 2015 02:58
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| # ¿ May 8, 2024 10:14 |
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Those all look great! I have an inkle loom too, but I haven't done much with it. I'm inching along on my first weave:  I looked at the underside this morning, and saw that those two threads that had been bothering me weren't woven in at all - just barely caught in one or two places. So.... I clipped them and pulled them out!  They looked like I had them threaded through the reed in the same dent. I think there may be a problem with my shafts, too - they don't seem to level out correctly when I take my foot off the treadles. Maybe it's keeping me from getting a clean shed? I know when I throw right up against the reed, it looks more "right". (We're still not talking about my selvadges, oy)
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Feb 7, 2015 20:12
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Yes, and tablet/card weaving Goons please tell us more about this strange and wonderful beast. This is the first time I've encountered it and I'm 
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Feb 8, 2015 15:21
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I got brave and tried some different treadlings: and it's off the loom now! There are ugly floats toward the end because I could hardly get a shed, and I still have to finish retying the tie-on knots from the front but oh lordy it's finally done.  It's all worsted weight wool so it feels very stiff and absolutely not garment quality. I think I can fold it in half, sew the long ends together and stuff a pillow in it, maybe. 
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Feb 10, 2015 14:07
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That's gorgeous! I managed to get one side of mine sewn today in preparation for pillowization. There's a huge horizontal float on the right side that I'm just going to embroider stars or something over like, "I meant to do that!" 
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Feb 12, 2015 04:36
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WooHoo, I made a Thing!   I hope I can figure out kitchen towels. That's what actually got me started thinking about weaving.
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Feb 14, 2015 23:47
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Oh, awesome! Yes, I'm working on threading it up now. It's taken me three days just to sley the reed. 8/2 cotton  it sticks to everything - itself, the other threads, me...Also, section of warp magically jumped from one space to another when I wasn't looking, because surely I wasn't dumb enough to put 14 ends in just one dent instead of 4! 
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Feb 23, 2015 04:23
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petecas posted:Don't forget this monstrosity, too. http://nonydt.wix.com/ecoweaving-en#!tablet-weaving/c1vvh 418 tablets. Holy cow! 
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Mar 4, 2015 15:42
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Holy cow that will be awesome. In noobweaver news, I finally got the drat dish towel warp tied on and must have lost a foot of loom waste already because I was apparently incapable of cutting or tying any two ends evenly. I'm really wondering if I'm too dumb to do this, at this point. 
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Apr 3, 2015 02:37
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Amykinz posted:
 Oh My God... is that one of the programmable thingy ones? Can you give us a rundown on how those work - do you actually insert cards into the dobby thingie or what?
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Apr 8, 2015 20:43
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Oh awesome, Amy - pleeeeease can we have a video of it in operation sometime? 
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Apr 9, 2015 01:28
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Amykinz posted:Had a couple extra minutes after dinner and my husband helped me out! No, that's great, thank you!! Wow - that compared to my little 4-shaft Hammett is like comparing a Ferrari to a Yugo. I can't wait to see what you make with it.
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Apr 9, 2015 18:21
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| # ¿ May 8, 2024 10:14 |
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May I just say that I love the word "whopper jawed" ? I'm going to use it everywhere now. 
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Jun 1, 2015 03:56
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