Warp Speed!

Good News! The little table loom I acquired (a friend found it on a trash heap) is in good working order. With a few minor repairs here and there and replacing all the tired and dusty warp and heddle and other strings, I've got myself a decent starter loom!

I took a lesson at Yarns by Design in Neenah last night. This summer they are offering several drop-in sessions for weavers. Last night there were two students--both of us absolute beginners. The teacher, Cheryl Stegert, was very knowledgeable and I got answers to my initial questions :

1) Is this loom usable? Yes.
Are there parts missing? No.
Does it need any repairs? Just minor repairs.
2) How to get started?
I was kind of hoping not to have to do the warping, that I'd be able to use the tired strings still on it. But no--like a good teacher, she had me start at the beginning with the warping board--and we cut off the old warp and turned them into "thrums" (pieces of string too short to save--actually, they are useful for all sorts of things!)

AND the little loom didn't break apart when we put tension on the warping strings!

Eventually, I'll have to replace the string heddles and she explained how to make a jig to make uniform heddles. But I'll be able to do a small project once I get the warps re-strung. ;-)

Here's a close-up of the heddles that will eventually need to be replaced. Here you can see I'm in the process of warping the loom. After the warp strings run through the heddles, I then run them through the reed (not shown) before tieing them off on the bar in front of the loom.

There's a lot of work to do before I can even get to the "meditation" and rhythm of weaving.

The other thing I wanted to know : Will this shuttle work (the one at the top of the picture below)?



CL's grandfather in France lived in a town with several wollen mills. He had the job of setting the patterns on the industrial looms. He had several of these old shuttles in the back shed. For my purposes on this little loom, however, this shuttle would be overkill. I'd need some special tool just to wind the bobbin. And see all those little holes--where is the yarn supposed to come out? I guess this goes back to being an interesting and antique knick-knack.

So I bought this little stick shuttle (middle item in photo) instead. Maybe later, I'll get a nice boat shuttle with the rebate from W ... I also bought the little hook for threading the warp through the heddles and reed : an essential tool!

I have some homework to do before the next session! I'm almost weaving!