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.