How I got my (weaving) groove back

A few days ago, I mentioned I wasn’t into weaving. Even though I thought I was at the time. Funny how that works, right?

Well, I picked it up the next day and this is what I’m weaving. I knew the reason for the dislike had everything to do with the fibers that I’d chosen, but I honestly didn’t feel like sorting through a “proper” fiber and so I embroidered.

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Weaving mistakes

 

Check out the above picture. Pretty awful, right? I still have a lot to learn. Look closely, my tension is all over the place. Do you see those edges? Weaving is my newest craft. In fact, I received my 32″ Kromski Rigid Heddle loom on December 16, 2013. So, it’s been almost a year.

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Warping the loom: Fixing my mistakes

 

And as you can see I still make mistakes. See those knots in the above picture? This was my fix for a mistake that I’d made.  I skipped two holes, while I was warping the loom. Of course, I did not notice this until I started weaving! I noticed right away.  As I moved the shuttle back and forth I racked my brain for a quick fix. It took a while and when it finally hit me, I could have smacked myself for not thinking of it sooner.  I cut the offending yarns, thankfully they were at the end, and rethreaded them through the holes. I then used more fiber to connect the now shortened fiber and just wound the loom past that point. Problem solved!

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Homemade shuttle made of cardboard

Another dilemma I experienced was the size of my shuttles. They are large. I needed something small to correspond with this fabrics width. What’s a lady to do? A quick “hack” was to make a shuttle out of cardboard! It’s definitely not permanent since constant use will make it soft.

 

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I finally got into the groove and started weaving and the fabric looks much better. There’s still room to improve and that’s fine. I’m making progress, hooray!

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