Over Thanksgiving weekend, I finally put the new loom together. Here's what it looked like in pieces:
And here's the assembled loom with a warp threaded and sleyed, but not tied on:
There are several accessories that are in the first picture that aren't in the second - a raddle, two warping boards - one of which has a stand (yay!), an additional reed and a multi-cone stand for holding cones of yarn.
The warp is a combination of blue cotton and green wool for a scarf that's an exercise in differential shrinkage. In a couple of months Elaine and I are teaching a novice weekend on this technique for the Chattahoochee Handweavers Guild and I'm weaving this as a sample and to try out some yarns from a new source. Here's what the weaving looks like:
The idea is that after the scarf is done, it is washed in hot water in the washing machine. This shrinks and felts the wool. It also shrinks the cotton, but not as much - hence the term "differential shrinkage". In this particular pattern the blue cotton will become somewhat "poofy" - kind of like bubble wrap - as the wool around it shrinks in all directions
Right now I have about 2 feet woven after weaving about a foot of sampling so I have a piece that I won't wash so that it can be compared with the final washed scarf. (Total - a little over 3 feet.)
The actual weaving is pretty quick as it is just plain weave. However, I'm having problems with the cotton warp yarn breaking. I haven't been able to figure out whether the problem lies in the heddles that the yarn is threaded through - they're old and may be a little rough so I plan on replacing all of them this summer, the yarn itself - the cotton is about the size of a single strand of embroidery floss, something I'm doing wrong, or some combination of the above. It's getting a little frustrating, so I haven't woven the last couple of weekends that I've been home. I'll get it worked out, though!
