My First Weaving Project. . .

Last weekend was the perfect time to set up the Rigid Heddle Loom I bought at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival.  With instruction booklet in one hand and online tutorials on the computer beside me, I set to work putting all the pieces together and figuring out how to thread it. It took me two hours, but mostly because I was a bit meticulous about getting it right (plus my balls of yarn kept rolling under the bed).

Anyways, a short time later and I was weaving!

I absolutely love it and what a great way to use up stash yarn. For the warp, I alternated between two shades of undyed Blue-Faced Leicester DK from West York Spinners (the lighter shade was left over from my Sous Sous).  For the weft, I used some of their Signature 4ply in their Country Birds series (Bullfinch). I really love the pattern that it made.   As you can see, I still need lots of practice as the weave goes wonky at times with tension changes and my ends aren't very neat.

Despite using wool, the finished project felt more like cotton or linen - light and compact in the hand. I experimented with a portion using the DK as the weft and while it does produce a denser fabric, I was still quite happy with how the 4ply weft worked on the DK warp.  I'm excited about the possibilities of incorporating lots of variegated yarns in future projects, especially those with colours that attracted me in the skein, but just didn't work when knitted up.

I'm also loving this book by Jane Patrick which is full of pattern ideas specifically aimed at the type of loom that I have.  The mind boggles at the sheer number of different types of fabric I can create. It's all very, very exciting.

I turned my swatch of weaving into a little bag, lining it with some tweed material I bought at a quilting show and adding two snaps as I hate it when yarn gets caught in zippers.

It's just big enough to contain my latest celtic cable knitting project - the Ishneich shawl by Lucy Hague.

Nearly finished now. . .