The NEW Cricket Loom
Our new cute-as-a-bug loom will be ready to ship in October. We are super excited about this little rigid heddle loom. It’s a kid’s loom, but it’s no toy.

Here’s the scoop:
• 10” weaving width
• Comes with 8-dent reed plus all the equipment you need to weave: two shuttles, warping peg, table clamps, two balls of Brown Sheep worsted weight yarn
• Weighs 4 ˝ pounds
• Dimensions: 11” x 6” x 18”
• Unfinished
• Great price: $135 and that’s for everything!
 

heddle down heddle up heddle neutral

We’re writing comprehensive, easy-to-understand instructions for assembling the loom and weaving a fun scarf project. Also included will be instructions for some other project ideas. This is a great gift for young and old alike.

To learn more about the Cricket and our other products, visit our website at www.schachtspindle.com.

Life at Schacht:
In the Garden
Remember our little veggie sprouts from our spring issue? Well, here we are in August after a month of record temperatures. The garden is abundant. We’re picking zucchini, cucumbers, kale and more kale (it’s the biggest bang for the buck as far as we are concerned), basil, yellow crooknecks, all kinds of bitter-greens-we’re-not-sure-what-they-are in Shoua’s Hmong garden, peppers, cabbage, cauliflower. Barry’s potatoes are looking great, and the tomatoes are setting on though they seem to be slow to ripen.

Bees
Here are Melissa and Jane all suited up checking out our bees. We’ve got two hives going and we’ll have honey for sure this fall.

Newsletter in PDF Format

 
Garden Sachet
It’s wonderful when you can meld two passions into one creation. Here, we’ve combined weaving and gardening to create a woven fabric for a sachet bag and filled it with dried lavender and rose petals from the garden. We’ve designed this sweet little project for the rigid heddle loom, and it is a great way to try out two-heddle weaving with very little fuss. Scent your own drawers or give to a special friend. 4-shaft instructions have also been provided.

Loom: 15” Flip Loom
Other Equipment: Two 10-dent rigid heddle reeds, three 12” stick shuttles, warping peg, threading hook, scissors, sewing machine, the Incredible Rope Machine

Yarn: 5/2 pearl cotton. We’ve used UKI #88 Wisteria (180 yards needed) and #152 Pistachio (180 yards needed) for warp. The weft is primarily #83 Petal Pink (120 yards needed) with accents of Wisteria and Pistachio (amounts included above).
 
EPI: 20
Width in reed: 8”
Total warp ends: 160.		 Warp color order: Alternate Wisteria and Pistachio.
Warp Length: 70” will make five sachets and allow for 20” loom waste.
Finished size: 3 ˝” X 5 ˝”.

Warping:
This narrow little project is a great way to experiment with two-heddle weaving. The real advantage of working with two heddles is the ability to weave finer setts. Follow the instructions in our Winter 2007 newsletter for two-heddle warping. For this project, we measured both the Wisteria and Pistachio yielding four ends in all of the slots, two Wisteria and two Pistachio.

Threading Color Order:
Heddle 2 (back heddle): 2 Wisteria and 1 Pistachio in the slots, 1 Pistachio in the holes.
Heddle 1 (front heddle): 2 Wisteria and 1 Pistachio in the slots and 1 Pistachio in the holes. Follow the threading instructions for two heddle threading.

Note:  For harness loom weaving, thread as shown in the harness loom draft on the next page, alternating Wisteria and Pistachio.

continued...

 Spinning and
Weaving Week
October 4-11, 2008

Think back to how you first learned about spinning and weaving. Chances are, you saw a demonstration, or a loom set up in a shop or museum, or someone spinning at the county fair. It piqued your interest. You wanted to know more. Maybe it changed your life.

This is what spinning and weaving week is about: sharing our passion for spinning and weaving with others. We want to encourage you to reach out during the first week in October. Take to the streets, local mall, park, coffee shop, library, yarn shop. Weave and spin and celebrate the crafts we love.

To learn more visit:
www.spinweave.org
www.spinweavedye.org


Garden Sachet, continued

Weaving:

  1. Plain weave (use two heddles together, up, down, up down, repeat), 2 ¼”. Petal Pink
  2. Heddle 1 only, up, down, up down, repeat for 1 ¼”. Petal Pink
  3. Heddle 1 up, heddle 2 up, repeat 4 times. Pistachio
  4. Plain weave, ½”. Pistachio
  5. Plain weave, 1”. Wisteria
  6. Plain weave, ¾”. Petal Pink
  7. Place both heddles in down position and pick up every other raised warp thread using a pickup stick. Weave as follows:
  1. Both heddles up, Petal Pink
  2. Pick-up stick (turned on edge), Pistachio
  3. Both heddles down, Petal Pink
  4. Pick-up stick (turned on edge), Pistachio
  5. Repeat.
  1. Plain weave, ¾”. Petal Pink
  2. Using the same pick-up stick from #7, weave the same pattern as in #7 for ½”. Petal Pink
  3. Plain weave, ¼”. Petal Pink
 Holiday Giving
(and Receiving)
Yes, it's still hot, and we're still thinking about summer fun, but it is not too early to think about the holidays. If you think you might give (or get!) a floor or wolf loom, or a spinning wheel, plan ahead and check with your local dealer now to ensure timely delivery. Wolf and floor looms typically take six weeks to ship, Ladybug and Matchless wheels take seven weeks, and Schacht-Reeves wheels ship in twelve weeks. Most other items will ship in one to three weeks. A few minutes now could save hours of anxious waiting during the holidays.

After weaving the first sachet, weave or advance the warp for an inch or so before beginning the next one. Feel free to vary the pattern and colors, treating each sachet as a little sampler of ideas. It’s a great way to experiment and have finished products at the end.

Finishing: Hand wash in hot soapy water. We dried our fabric in a lingerie bag with other laundry in the dryer, removed it while still damp and then steam pressed.

Sewing: Cut one sachet bag length from the fabric. With right sides together, stitch a 1/4" seam across the bottom and along the side, with longest plain weave edge at top. Trim corners, press, turn right side out, press. Working from the right side, turn edge under to the wrong side about 1/8” and stitch as close as you can to the edge. Make a rope tie with Wisteria using the Incredible Rope Machine. Fill the bag with potpourri. Alternately, you could sew a sachet pillow from a scrap piece of fabric and fill this with potpourri, inserting the pillow into your sachet bag.