Happy Accidents

My husband bought me another loom at Yule, a larger one so I can learn to weave scarves and shawls. It’s an Asford 80cm rigid heddle, a beautifully made beech wood loom.

Warping it for the first time was nerve wracking but once you get used to it, it’s not so bad.

The first one came out quite well, it’s a little short, but warm and comfortable to wear.

I then tried a thicker weaving using black merino wool and dark grey/brown Black Sheep wool from Norfolk, in stripe. A mat for my husband’s chest of drawers. Black is hard to work, I found, but it was successful.

Feeling braver, I decided to use more width and warped up the loom in a thicker wool, Yorkshire Spinners roving:

What a nightmare that was, every pass of the shuttle, the wool tried to felt itself together. The longer I persevered, the worse it got, until a proper shed wasn’t forming at all. Eventually I realised I’d got my first big lesson from a major yarn choice mistake. I cut all the wool off carefully and wound it in loads of balls. Not wanting to waste it, I used a YouTube video (Mary Matthews Handmade) and crotched a triangular shawl instead.

So pleased with the result. It’s great just for use on a mild day with my shawl pin, or can be wrapped more snuggly as a scarf with a coat, on a cold day.

I’m hoping to soon purchase a stand for my big loom which will make warping much easier, and I’ve been much more careful choosing yarns. I’ve never been very good at doing loads of research first. Creatively, I like to just jump straight in. When I do make mistakes the lessons are deeply engraved!

Anyone else just as desperate to plunge in the deep end?

First forays into weaving

In 2021 I bought my first hand loom, a beautiful beech wood loom with a heddle bar. This is comfortable to use sat on my sofa with one end supported by a small table. I have two shuttles, but quickly found that long needles were easier for the different textures and thicknesses of yarn I was drawn to. I have two wooden ones with large eyes and two thin metal ones that I prefer. I bought a standard comb but also use a two pronged wooden hair pin to beat down the weft.

Immediately I began exploring the possibilities, experimenting with patterns and colour. I wanted to use all natural materials from the start, beginning with wool, hemp and cotton. I made a a few mats then felt called to weave wall hangings, mainly landscapes from my locality or from memory.

The hangings are attached to hazel dowels that I cut from the woods nearby and strip the bark. For seascapes I like to use driftwood. The hanging threads are usually the warp cottons plaited. Sometimes I add shells or pieces of wood to the fringes to add a tactile sense of place. The patterned weaving shown below is made with different colours of garden twine which was quite challenging. The bark weaving uses golden roving wool to give an impression of lichen, this one is also hung with the weft line vertical as it was easier to create the flowing shapes of bark that way.

It’s been a steep learning curve, lots of fun, endless possibilities and lots more to come.