I tried weaving

I did it, I finally got around to getting the loom fixed up and I tried weaving.  About 3 years ago, I found this antique loom on craigslist at a local artist’s estate sale and I went and nabbed it.  I initially cleaned it up and got it in working order before life hit and house projects took over.  This loom ended up being stashed away in storage for a while and pretty much forgotten.

I watched a bunch of youtube videos on dressing the loom and gave it a try.  Honestly, I messed it up pretty bad and it took many, many hours.  By the time the loom was ready for weaving, I didn’t even want to do it anymore.  It was a fun idea, but this was not for me.

But I decided that I was at least going to get a few projects completed before I got rid of the thing, especially after all the work I did cleaning it and fixing some of the mechanics.

Once I got into the actual weaving, it turned out to be pretty chill.  Several nights this week I pulled up a podcast on my phone and just sat and weaved.  Weaving goes faster than I thought.  A few nights later I had an extra-long scarf woven and I was ready to learn how to get it off the loom.

Another youtube video later I was tying it off and trying it on.

Is it a good scarf?  No, it’s horrible.

Does it kind of look like hot garbage?  Yep.

I wasn’t expecting to get anything amazing the first time I tried it. After the first couple of rows, I realized I didn’t like the colors I selected but I kept going.  I wanted to make all the common mistakes on something I didn’t care about before grabbing any of my pretty yarns.  Most of the mistakes I made seemed really common and they’re just something that’s going to get better with practice.

Having gone through this project I do know that this type of loom isn’t what I want.  This type of loom will let you do a lot of neat patterns and stuff and so it’s far more difficult to set up.  After I thought about it, all I really want to do is a basic weave and this loom is overkill for that.  And besides, this thing is too big and hard to find places to store it.

What I really want now is a rigid heddle loom.  They’re small, compact and some even fold up smaller and fit into a carrying bag.  But after searching for one of those I just couldn’t convince myself to pay hundreds of dollars for a couple of pieces of wood and plastic.  I appreciate the craftsmanship, but I’m not that serious about weaving.   I have way too many hobbies to be serious about any one of them.

That’s when I think I found my next project, the 3d printed rigid-heddle loom:

Once I get the 3D printer moving all I will need are some screws and wood dowels.