Confessions of a Novice Weaver--Week One

This is the second installment written by Melissa Ludden of her experiences of learning to weave. --J.

The long and painful countdown was finally over, and I was ready to get weaving. I showed up at Shuttles barely able to contain my excitement. My classmates, who span several generations, seemed to share my enthusiasm, and Judy wasted no time starting the program.

The next four hours would be spent taking us from ground zero to actually weaving. This was a lot of information to take in over the course of four hours. I would highly recommend heading to your local weaving shop to check out their selection of books and looms just to familiarize yourself with the basic concepts of weaving and the anatomy of the loom before you start taking a class. Working here at Schacht definitely gave me an information advantage, and I was still zapped by the end of the evening.

Confession # 3

I kinda like warping the loom. This probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows me well. The general impression I had of warping going into this class was that it was a big drag. One would spend a great deal of time trudging through the preparation, and then the actual weaving would be like zipping down the highway with the top down on a sunny day.

What I found is that I actually enjoy the preparation. It is a finite period of time during which you get closer and closer to the excitement of creating something real. And when the loom is warped, it’s a thing of beauty – the moment of anticipation before the party starts. A clean shed is a bit of a thrill.

Two basic things to keep in mind when you’re warping the loom: use enough light and take your time. You’re dealing with lots of fiber and some very tiny spaces. Set time aside to really focus on the task at hand. Put on some music and create your own little world. Rushing the process = icky shed. And icky shed = unthreading and rethreading and perhaps the utterance of a few not-so-savory words.

Next week…mad about plaid.

Christy's Scarf

I wanted to share with you the scarf Christy wove during my Weave-A-Scarf-in-a-Day class at my LYS, Shuttles, Spindles, and Skeins. Christy works in our accounting department at Schacht and took the class I was teaching at Shuttles. For some weaving newbies, their selvedges and beat are even from the start. Christy is just this kind of new weaver. She’s getting her first rigid heddle loom (the Schacht Flip Folding Loom) and I’m looking forward to where she goes from here. Her enthusiasm reminds me of the excitement I felt when I first started weaving. Can you still remember the thrill of it all?
You’ll find the instructions for this woven and felted scarf in the Schacht Winter 2008 on-line newsletter. Just go to www.schachtspindle.com and click on “Recent Issue”. It’s easy to subscribe.

Dye Day

My friend Maggie Casey of our wonderful yarn shop Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins in Boulder gave her employees and a few of us lucky friends a wonderful gift. We each received a machine knitted blank (48 stitches knitted out of Henry’s Attic Kona (a superwash merino wool). She then prepared the shop dye studio for painting the blanks. We all have to produce our socks by April first (even a weaver must knit every now and again). I'll keep you posted

The whole dye day was super fun—it’s a great way to get you fiberholic friends together to try something new. Having a deadline for our socks will mean that we’ll get them knitted.

BTW: Maggie learned this technique from Nancy Roberts who teaches this dye workshop around the country. You can check out her website at: www.machineknittingtodyefor.com/