Taking the Plunge

I've been lurking on various used fiber equipment sites waiting and hoping and mostly accepting that I would never find what I wanted. No one was selling anything in my area and no one was willing to ship. But then on the KSL classifieds of all places, I found it: my loom.

8 harness 12 treadles and a 42" weaving width and it was significantly underpriced. But still, it was a lot of money. But could I afford to pass this up? My husband and I decided no I could not and we headed into town to pick it up. We had to get a babysitter because no way could we fit this into the same van with four littles. I was so nervous heading in part because I wanted it so badly but what if it was badly damaged? The seller was managing an estate sell and didn't seem to know a thing about weaving so it could easily be unusable and he wouldn't even know it. But I was also nervous because what if it was perfect and then we spent all that money on it. What if it wasn't worth it. What if I lost interest in weaving in a few months or a year? What if I regretted buying it? It's scary investing in yourself. Ultimately it felt right. The loom was beautiful and all the extras that came with it we're worth the price of the loom on their own.

I've had the loom for a couple of weeks now. It has a sectional warp beam so I had to figure out how to warp that way and the videos on youtube only helped so much. There really isn't the abundance of resources for weaving that there is for knitting. But maybe I just don't know how to find it.

I used the yarn I dyed for the color gamp that I lost interest in making and warped up my first project.

To keep things simple for my first go I only threaded 4 harnesses in a straight draw, which means I put one thread threw a heddle on the first harness then the second one on the second harness and so on starting over after four.

With an equally simple tie-up (connecting the foot treadles to the harnesses) I could do plainweave and a 2x2 twill.

I'm having a lot of fun with this sampler and can't wait to try out all eight harness with more complicated drafts!