I had a hard time learning to make even selvedges, and started with cotton threads. I still don’t feel very confident about selvedges, but realized early on that the only way to learn how they feel, and how to produce them well, was to practice, practice, practice.
Wool, and wool-like, fibers, are a lot more forgiving, but practicing with the far more unyielding cotton was invaluable!
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Sooo . . . evening after evening I’ve kept my fingers busy repairing the small pulls our felines diligently create on their favorite blanket. And then, one morning, I woke up to this:
Somebody really went to town during the night.
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I’ve written about this pattern before, but this time I’ve made a version a little closer to the original. This one works much better than the previous one, thanks in part to the softer fabric, which drapes much more nicely than the first version.
I love that it’s a fast, easy and rewarding one for beginning weavers. It’s also amusingly versatile to wear, since it makes up into a vest-like wrap, a shawl, and a sort-of-a-poncho.
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This is a portion of the first piece I wove on my own. It’s a great example of the way in which a very simple, beginning-weaver project, can turn into more than the sum of its origins!
The fibers are just craft store crochet yarns, woven in alternating stripes, on what was then my brand-new Cricket loom.
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As I worked on mastering selvedges, I wove a lot of yardage just for practice — not always terribly successfully! This mattered a lot less to me than you might think, since my entire — my only — reason for getting a rigid heddle loom was to decrease anxiety. I wanted something to keep my hands busy and my mind off just about everything. (Times are tough, folks!)
So at one point I ended up with yards of blue, not exquisite, fabric.
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Washing my finished Cat Blanket fabric turned out to be less problematic than I had anticipated. Utilizing the plastic dish tub I’ve always used for previous rigid heddle projects, I rinsed the fabric in a few drops of a mild dishwashing detergent, and then rinsed in tepid water — the only difference being that I put the plastic tub into a full-sized bathtub. That allowed for ease of draining, and also allowed a lot of latitude for gently pressing water out of the fabric.
I use two large bath towels for rolling damp handwoven fabric, and normally handle smaller pieces on a table. In this case, with fabric 30 inches/76 cm by 81 inches/205 cm, I lay one towel on the bathroom floor alongside the tub, rolled the fabric, and then repeated with the second towel.
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The first project on my 32 inch/81 cm Kromski rigid heddle loom was a cat blanket. This was a no-risk proposition, since the end result was doomed to destruction, eventually. Cats love wool, but ours all have claws, and claws inevitably catch on fabric.
Bearing these facts in mind, I warped the loom with a poor quality (and likely vintage) natural cotton. I was not surprised that it had joins all over the place — something that responsible yarn makers don’t allow any more! In testing the joins, though, I discovered that, though bulky, they were tight, hence perfectly fine for this sort of warp.
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This is a rather fun garment which lends itself to all kinds of yarns — and can be woven on a 10 inch/25 cm loom. I wove it on my Cricket, which is wider, but (more or less) kept the dimensions of the Schacht pattern, which is called, amusingly, but not succinctly, It Was A Vest at Times It was a Wrap at Times. (Whew!)
I wove with an 8 dent reed, using a 100% wool Turkish yarn called Poems from Wisdom Poems Yarns, in colorway Arles 601 for the weft — and my well-loved Harrisville Highland in Iris for the warp. I’m not sure I love the way the variegation of the Poems worked in this case, but, no matter, the colors are wonderful.
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Plain weave isn’t usually very exciting by itself, but learning to do it well is an essential for rigid heddle learners. A clever way to make beginner projects more interesting is to choose a variegated yarn in colors you love.
This cowl wasn’t the first thing I wove on my Cricket, but it might have been, as it’s so simple to make that anyone can do it. It’s just a rectangle of cloth, but I love how the variegated yarn makes it look so much spiffier than a solid color plain weave!
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My 15 inch/38 cm Cricket loom came in a compact box, unfinished, and in pieces.
However daunting this appears, assembly was, in fact, pretty straightforward, and the instructions clear.
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