April 24

I feel lame for posting here when I’m not actually doing any weaving at the moment, but it’s not like anyone but me reads this anyway 🙂

I ordered some end feed shuttles on ebay and got them yesterday. Man are those things heavy. This just reinforces the idea that I shouldn’t be buying shuttles online. To reinforce it even further, the one pirn I have doesn’t fit them.

I went to YouTube and did a search for weaving videos. Not much there but I did find one at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DwNrzmAOR0. Maybe I’m missing something, and I’m sure that’s it, but it seems like she throws the shuttle, beats, throws the shuttle back the same way it came, beats, then changes the shafts. I realized she has 2 shuttles there but I didn’t see her switch them at those particular places.

Not that there was much going on here before, but there probably won’t be anything going on here for the next 6 weeks or so. The house will officially be under contract tomorrow and I’m going to be busy with all the moving things that come along with it.

Book aquisition

I haven’t been attempting to weave much lately. I’m still getting books from the library and reading what I can in between bouts of knitting, showing the house, reading blogs, and stalking ebay for things like shuttles, yarn, and books. I managed to snag a copy of Warping All By Yourself and from what I’ve read so far, this book is good for me. Other books do give you some idea of how to warp the loom alone, but this one goes into some things that I don’t remember reading in other books. For instance, I don’t recall seeing another book talk about tying a separate yarn that has been marked onto the warping board and exactly where to put the ties. One thing I didn’t do was cut the warp off the board when I was making a chain, I just pulled the end off and got started. I don’t know how much it will matter in the end as I haven’t had the chance to wind another warp yet. Another thing is putting a stick at the front to start the heading. I think this will be helpful for me as my first attempts were a little wonky when I began. And it’s possible that other books do tell you these things and I just haven’t run across them yet. All in all, I’d say it was $10 well spent.

Now I just need to get some shuttles. I don’t want to invest a lot in them until I find which works better for me. I’ve read discussions on the different weights and what works for one might not work for another. Unfortunately, there isn’t any place around here that sells shuttles so I can’t feel them before buying. I’m leaning heavily towards end feed shuttles (the most expensive of the different types, of course) but again, won’t know until I can actually try one.

First fabrics

This was my very first attempt at weaving. I wasn’t following any type of draft, I just played around with the treadles to see what kind of pattern came out.

What causes that wave there at the beginning? I still need to find the answer to that.

After perusing handweaving.net for a very long bit, I decided to try my hand at following an actual draft.

As you can see, I also decided to add color to the warp. I made a few mistakes. One thing I learned in following an actual draft is that I need a little quiet to do it, at least at this stage in my learning. Being interrupted by the phone or listening to television made me lose my place in the draft. At first I guessed where I thought I was, then I tried backtracking. Sometimes I got lucky, sometimes I didn’t. All in all, I’m not disappointed in what you see. It’s not perfect, but I still learned from it so that makes it worthwhile.