Thursday, May 25, 2006

Good things loom ahead

Like many knitters and spinners, my stash definitely exceeds any possible life expectancy that I might have. I've collected yarns for scarves and small projects for awhile now, and continue to do so all the time. I also do demonstrations for kids of spinning and weaving, and was looking for a simple small loom that would fold up and be very portable. I already have a small right heddle table loom, but it isn't well made and is very combersome to thread and use. I decided to try the Ashford Knitter's Loom which is pictured here. The loom has some definite shortcomings if you're a weaver such as no separate harness and reed, you beat the weaving using the rigid heddle itself, but for a non-weaver that wants a way to make up small projects and not have to learn to weave in a more traditional way, it would be perfect. You wind your warp directly onto the loom and threading it is very easy. My practice project was a narrow scarf made of Euroflax Aberdeen Heathered yarn, but it's drying now after a ride in the washer so I didn't have a picture. This scarf is Noro very chunky weight yarn, and took one (very large) skein. The loom is warped with some heathered and variegated wool that I bought for a scarf that would go with my Navy Blue uniform overcoat. I like the way it's turning out already. I did 2 scarves yesterday, it goes very fast.

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