Here are the socks that distracted me :)

One pair of size 15 (he says 14.5) york socks made with single ply merino wool. I didn't spin it myself as all the stuff that I had previously spun is much finer weight, but I'm totally hooked on Naalbinding. Tomorrow I'm going to buy the wool to make me some mittens. I made some slight modifications to the pattern (read huge) so that it would work on the wearer. I also made the top of the socks extend a little higher so that they work better under his shoes.

Sorry...I got distracted...

So, I was all ready to start a practice weaving piece on the loom and I got distracted by another project. I went to RUM and learned to Naalbind :) So far I've made a hat and one size 15 york sock (note to self: when learning to make something for the first time perhaps having to alter the pattern a ton to fit a certain husband's huge feet is not the best plan). The pattern was for a women's 9.5...so needless to say there was so trial and error involved...
Ok..
Back to the loom...I promise...

BTW...

I no longer have 30 clay weights as Tristan found them and thought they made a most marvelous crash when they hit the concrete. He had broke two and was on number three by the time I was able to stop him.

-But that is all ok because I still need to make more anyway...

So...I know it's been a while.

Between Christmas, Gulf Wars prep, and event stewarding, my loom got bumped to the back burner. Hopefully in the next month or so I will be warping it! I have read, and read, and read...I get the concept - once I was able to visualize in my head the way that it's suppose to work - and life has slowed as much as it will - I'm itching to get started.

The first thing I'm going to do is a test warp. I'm going to use commercial thread and I'm just going to tie on the warp and not card weave it into a band. Since the test warp is simply to get the mechanics of the loom down I see no need to make it any harder than it needs to be. I will probably end up with something big enough that I can make something for my son :)

I now have about 30 clay weights!

(Sword beaters)

I should have all the weights finished this week. I'll post a pictures.

The next things that I need to make are a pin beater and a sword beater. The pin beater is kind of like a tooth pick for the loom. It looks like one too. The sword beater looks like a sword and is used to beat the weft up. The pin beater will fit in my hand and the sword beater will end up sword size.

The pictures that I have included are made of bone because like the looms - most things that were made of wood have decomposed. Luckily we have some that were made of bone so we know what they looked like.

(Pin Beater)

Here are two example of loom weights of baked clay and steatite from the National Museum of Scotland.

The novelty wears off...

When I decided to make 50 clay donuts - I don't think my brain really grasped the idea of 50 clay donuts. After the first 8-10 donuts, the novelty wears off. Trust me on this one :)
The weights seem to lose a uniform amount of weight from air drying. I start will a 8oz donut and end with a 5oz donut. This seems like a reasonable weight to work with. After working with the clay a bit, 1lb weights would have been too heavy. These at just shy of a 1/4 lb seem much more the thing, especially for the thread counts that I would like to eventually aim to get.