Warping - day two

This is what 200 threads looks like...my hand is about the width of a standard credit card.

This is what 300 threads looks like...

I'm now guessing that I may need more than 600. I'm guessing that I will go to 800 or the end of the cone, whatever comes first. I will say that I have so far walked 4,500 steps around those kitchen chairs...if the average person takes 2000 steps in a mile...I think I will continue in this fashion to finish this warp, but I'm pretty sure that I will be having the hubby build me a warping board for next time :)

Finally - a loom post.

Close up of 100 threads and the rubberbands that kept them from flying off the chairs :)

Today I started the basic warp for the loom. The fiber is pretty light weight two ply of some kind of synthetic origin (read as - it was free and it's unlabeled). I set to chairs about 6 feet apart and started walking. Note the rubberbands at the top of the chairs - these were crucial - otherwise the warp didn't stay on my chairs and made a big mess :)
What you see is one hundred threads...yes this means I had to walk around the chairs 100X. What this tells me is either I will get a lot of walking done while warping - or I will decide that I really am that lazy and have my hubby make me a warping board. Considering I was thinking that this first attempt should be about 600+ threads, we'll see what happens...

This is what 100 threads looks like in my hand.

I moved the top bar down so I could reach it to tie on the warp. I have decided to not card weave the warp into a band and sew it to the loom due to that fact that this piece will be a test piece. Besides, not every piece of weaving was done in this way. If I was making a piece that needed to have nice edges I could see the merit in weaving the band and have band of card weaving down the sides, but since I am learning the basics - I figured it was better to keep things as simple as possible at first and then build from there. The warp threads are tied on in bundles of five and so far seem to be behaving themselves...

A new member of the Barony, who is also a fiber person, was able to go to Pennsic and take a warp weighted weaving class there (I'm sooo jealous!) - She is going to come over next week and help with the chaining of the warp and the heddles.

My goal with this piece is to make enough to make something for my son.

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)