Warping the Picture Frame Loom and Weaving

 

Here is the Picture Frame Loom all warped up with 100 meters of Noro wool yarn.  I really like the long color changes, and wondered what ti would look like woven into cloth.

The Noro Wool is not strong enough to use on the tri-loom as there's too much tension, and it breaks -- ask me how I know.  Needless to say, I had to find another project for this pretty yarn. 

 It really is Noro, even though they put the price tag right over the label.

Here's the ball of yarn ready to be wound onto the foam core dog-bone bobbin I fashioned myself.  Another nod to recycled / up-cycled goods for this project.

You need something big enough to carry the yarn, but thin enough to get through the opening between the tension bars. 

 

Yarn wound onto the foam core bobbin.  

The empty frame before warping.

We start by tieing the end of the yarn onto the lower tension bar behind the frame loom.  Then you feed the yarn down and around the lower edge of the frame, then up and over the top, down the back and around the upper tension bar; then back up over the top, and down the front, around the lower edge and around the lower tension bar.  Repeat all the way across the loom.

I have some 1/4-inch graph paper glued onto the lower bar to help keep the spacing of the weft strings even. 

 

Here is is with the warp all done.  I did this in about 1 hour with 100 meters of Noro, or 1 ball of yarn.  

Detail of the weft strings with color changes.

The frame loom on the stand is designed to spin to make the back side easily accessible.  You can spin it so that the backside is reachable from the front.

Here's another shot of the tension bars : You can see it's completely open between the bars.  You can also crank down to tighten the tension, or loosen it and roll the woven cloth and warp down to work on some of the strings running down the backside--which is a nice feature of the warping / tension bars. 

 

View from the backside, with the tension / warping bars.  

Moving onto Heddles :

 

This is a heddle jig.  My next task was to tie a bunch of these strings (heddles).  The jig helps keep them uniform -- the same length and with the knots in the same places.

These will be looped onto a heddle bar that can be used to pull certain strings up and out of the way so the weaving yarn can pass through the shed.

 

A completed Heddle.

 

Here, the heddle bar has been installed.  See the white rod with all the strings hanging off of it.  

This bar can be pulled up and set onto the wooden heddle bar blocks, so that it holds the shed open to pass the weaving shuttle and yarn through to weave the cloth.  

The other flat stick you see higher up is a shed stick, used to hold a different set of strings open while you weave.

The shed stick and the heddle stick are used to open alternating shed spaces for weaving. 

 

Here the shed stick is turned up to open the space between the warp strings.   

Here's another view of the open shed created by the turned up shed stick.

 

Here the shed stick is down, with the shed closed.

 

Another view in between of the sheds.

 

Here the heddles are being used to pull up a different set of warp strings for an alternate shed space.

 

Here is the shuttle loaded with another skein of the Noro yarn.

 

Here's a view of the shuttle passing through the shed space opened by the shed stick.

The first bit of weaving on my new loom.

The colors are emerging!

I am a little concerned about the bowing of the cloth.  On the rug looms, they use metal rods at the sides to keep them even.  I'm considering how I can add that feature (or something like it) to this design.

Read about the building of this loom.