Cute as a button!

It’s here, it’s here! I’m so excited!

My loom arrived today, together with some extras! It came in a flat box, because this is one of those tools that you need to assemble yourself. You need a hammer and a screwdriver and some patience, and the accompanying instructions booklet is quite clear.

Getting the screws in was a bit of hard work, but I managed to do it. I did not put on any finish yet, as my wood wax order is still in transit and I didn’t want to wait for that before I could start weaving. Assembling the loom took me about 40 minutes.

This is such a cute little loom! It’s about 30 cm wide (weaving width is 25 cm), and it seems to be the perfect size for weaving in your lap, just like I hoped. I decided to warp the loom immediately with some lovely Malabrigo Rios (Azules) from my stash. I caked the yarn and started warping.

It turned out that the kitchen was the best spot in the house for warping. I could make a warp of about 2 meters here. Plenty for a scarf! Working with the warping peg was a breeze after my struggle in my earlier project where I used (ahum) a full water bottle (ahum)… Using thicker yarn meant that the warping did go rather quickly. I used the 30/10 (7.5 epi) reed that came with the loom.

I wound the warp onto the back beam and knotted the front ends to the front apron rod. I used the cardboard strips that came with the loom to separate the different layers of the warp on the back beam. This time I was only using one yarn for warp and weft, and I was going to weave a simple basket weave. Nothing fancy, just plain weaving.

So, time for the deciding test: is this a proper lap loom? The answer is yes!

I’m sitting with one leg pulled up on the couch. The loom is in my lap and I am quite comfortable weaving like this. Moving the reed to the up and down position took some getting used to, because the loom I tried before did not work the same way. On that loom, pulling the front part of the reed up would push the back part down and vice versa. The SampleIt has an up, a neutral, and a down position. The shed is nice, and large enough. I did wind the shuttle on one side only to better fit through the shed triangle.

After weaving for about three hours, my scarf was done. Weaving is incredibly fast! You really cannot compare it to knitting.

I still have to work on making my selvedges nice and even and the right size, but that’s a matter of practice, I think. It already got better during this project. The scarf is 21 cm wide and 152 cm long. My husband tried it on this evening because he was feeling cold. It helped!

I’m musing about my next project. Shall I try using the 60/10 (15 epi) reed this time? Or even try double weaving? I’ll dream on it tonight.

Meanwhile, Freya is taking her cat-blocking duties very seriously. She sat on it immediately after I laid it in front of the heater. It’s still quite wet, so it must be quite uncomfortable. But Freya is a brave and loyal cat and she will do what’s necessary each and every time.