New loom being put to work

I’ve got my new loom.  I could leave it at that but that wouldn’t be any fun to read so let me tell you how I wasn’t feeling the new loom love.

I got the loom on the 17th.  We left around 9am and didn’t get there until close to 2pm due to stopping for food, walking the dog (she went with us), and a quick stop at the Harley Davidson place along the highway.  (A quick insert here to say, there’s a huge beef farm on highway 5 and omg does it smell bad. I thought I was going to be sick.) The Man got to explore the woodworking area of the shop while I got to see floor looms, inkle looms, and warping reels.  We didn’t make it home until around 9pm so I didn’t play with the loom then. Sunday and Monday were for spending quality time with The Man before he left for NY, so I didn’t get to start playing with my new toy until Tuesday.

I got all the heddles on and started with the tie-ups.  It frustrated me that it was taking so long for me to get the shafts tied up and even.  This is also known as the I’m not very patient and why can’t it just magically work syndrome.   Then I started warping it.  The Gem II has a “knee bar” so your knees and the cloth don’t collide.  This is something I didn’t have to deal with before so in my haste, I forgot about the knee bar and tied the warp on wrong.  I realized my error, untied it, and tied it on again.  This time I took the warp behind the knee bar because they had said “remember the knee bar when you’re warping, your cloth will go behind it”.   My brain translated this as the warp goes behind it, instead of cloth.  When I was trying to tie those knots, I was truly regretting my decision to buy this loom.  There was hardly any room to get my fingers in there to tie them. There was going to be so much yarn wasted.  What had I done, what was I thinking buying a loom without seeing it in person?? I finally got all the knots tied and got ready to start weaving. That’s when the “you are a dumbass” lightbulb came on.  I had tied it on wrong again!  It’s not the warp itself that needs to be put behind the knee bar before you tie it on, but the cloth tie-on bar that needs to go up behind it then over the front bar.  I had put the tie-on bar over the front bar, then back towards the knee bar.  That all probably makes no sense to most people, sorry.  Anyway, now that the warp is tied on properly, I love it and don’t regret the decision to buy it.

I sold the table loom in December, and today the Harrisville went to live with a new owner.  It was kind of sad seeing the Harrisville go.  That was my first loom.  The one I spent a lot of time getting rust off of.  The one I learned on.  The one that I only recently learned how to fold the front up and didn’t take up much space.  The new owner was very excited about getting it to replace a loom that she wasn’t able to keep (too big) so it’s in good hands now.

My first project is a sampler for a Summer & Winter weave-along on Ravelry. It’s a method of weaving that makes one side dark, while the other side is a light reverse of the design.  There’s an “oops” in there but not bad for my first time.