Having got a small 10" rigid heddle loom at the beginning of December I haven't had a lot of time to try it out but I have managed a bit just using some left over knitting wool.
I wound a narrow warp using up the remains of a dark green DK yarn and started off with some plain weave.
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I can see that my beating is inconsistent but in my defence the yarn is stretchy and spongy and probably not the most suitable for weaving with. I have had to keep cranking up the tension of the warp (though I don't actually know how tight or loose it should be). I'm pleased with my selvedges which seem reasonably tidy and that the piece is a consistent width.
That's where it got left until today. The instruction booklet that came with the loom has instructions for a sampler so I tried out a couple of different weave patterns.
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I like them both and it was a useful exercise in spotting errors. I realised that I had unwanted weft floats on the basket weave pattern but I could see what had happened and was able to make sure I avoided it. I found the bit with the blue bits in tricky to get the edges neat and though the left edge has gone ok the right hand side is a car crash. I stopped trying to work out how it needed to be done - that's for another day. I think if there was just one more warp thread on that side it would be work ok. It's useful doing this because I am finding out things that I need to learn to do like weaving in ends when the shuttle runs out and you start a new one.
I haven't got much spare knitting yarn but I have quite a bit of grey and pink which is thinner so when this warp runs out I will have a play with that. Enjoying the journey so far
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