Weaving, Warp and a Rainy Day

The day has arrived, that day in which I will take a deep breath and begin my weaving journey on the lovely Leclerc floor loom that sits in my fiber studio.  I’m filled with both excitement and apprehension at the same time.  Excitement, because I have long wanted to weave on a floor loom just like my Colorado fiber friends  – just a teensy bit of peer pressure there, I admit it.  Apprehension, because everything is unfamiliar to me and it has always been a little nerve wracking for me to enter in on the ground floor of anything new.

Watching Janet Dawson’s Floor Loom Weaving class on the Craftsy platform has helped me understand how the whole weaving thing works.  Ms. Dawson is an excellent teacher.  The class demonstrates front-to-back warping so I will be working through that method to weave three pillows.

The beforehand project uses a 2-ply yarn and, after searching far and wide for an appropriate substitute in the States, I caved and ordered the yarn Ms. Dawson uses in the class from a Canadian store.  My Christmas tradition is to add a pillow to my Christmas decor, this year I will be weaving them.

Brenda, at Penelope Fibres, helped me pick out Christmas colors for the pillow from the Briggs & Little Regal stock:

• Red #73
• Light Brown #24
• Green Heather #62
• Washed White #02

When it arrived the wool smelled just like it came straight from a woolen mill – just as it ought to, nice and ‘sheepy.’  Yep, that’s me, a closet wool sniffer.

Because this yarn came in a skein the next step was to put it on a yarn swift and wind it into a center-pull ball to prepare it for the warping board.

Next comes winding onto the warping board.   In this pillow project my warp is five yards long so I measured off a guide string a five yard length and then found a path on the warping board with the string that length.  The guide thread stays there to mark the traveling course as I wind the warp.

Under, over ….. around.…. under, over…..follow the guide string and  the all important cross is formed.

Everything I’ve read and every instructor I’ve listened to says to take all measures to protect that cross and I have done that.

Janet Dawson teaches how to wind two warp threads at once and learning that sped up the whole second half of the warp … double time (wink, wink).

I think I could just melt away in this shade of RED, so pretty it is. I crocheted each half of the warp into a chain and they are all ready for the next step. My friends tell me that winding the warp and threading the loom is half the project.

I certainly hope that is true because what I did today took most of the day.  Time to rest, not completely though because I’m behind on my 10,000 steps today and the rainy day has turned into sunshine.