Warp, Weft & Whoo!

After several more days, I got up them gumption to warp the loom.  By this point I was fairly intimidated by the idea of warping the loom.  People had told me horror stories of taking days to warp the loom correctly and how you had to have at least 2 people to warp the loom.  Add long drawn out sighs and you’ll understand why these people had me worried. 

I downloaded the Cricket instruction manual, and got to work.  It took me about an hour to get it set up, including breaks for little girls requesting juice and other snacks.  I warped the loom with some Three Irish Girls sock yarn, McClellen fingering weight for those who are curious.  To create the weft, I used another sock yarn I had in my stash.  This one was a Sock Summit colorway, a very pretty multicolored yarn. 

It was at this point that I realized I had a problem.  Somehow I had managed to warp the loom backwards.  I was kind of confused as to which end was the front and which was the back.  I managed to finangle it so that I think everything was rearranged on the loom the way it should have been.  At least I think it will work this way.  Quite honestly, I have no idea! 

Then, the girls and I got to work on our creation. I’m having some issues getting all the lines of the weft straight, and our tension isn’t the most consistent.  However, I think the tension (I assume that’s what you call it when you are beating the weft) issues will be worked out with more practice.  It probably didn’t help that I was letting the girls do some weaving with me. 

The girls were definitely excited about getting to help Mommy weave!  They have been enjoying playing with the shuttle.  I was surprised at how fast they both figured out which position the heddle should be in when the shuttle was on either side. 

I’m looking forward to learning more about weaving so that I can do a few patterned scarves.  Does anyone have any suggestions for weaving books?  I don’t see this becoming a weaving blog instead of a knitting blog, but it is a fun diversion.