Here it is, with a scarf in progress:
No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get the treadles & lamms to work their magic (but at least I know what they are now!), so I decided to just use the levers on top and PUT A WARP ON IT RIGHT NOW! I just couldn’t wait any longer…
I decided on a chenille scarf, thinking that the chenille yarn is much thicker than the dishcloth cotton, I have a ton, and it would be a good learning experience, without feeling like I’m wasting a ton of money.
First, I needed a 3-1/2 yard warp, but I skipped the part in the instructions about the second cut, so I ended up with a 7 yard warp. Yikes – that’s looooong. Put it on, and it turned out to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 yards, since I had to keep trimming. Plenty for my needs, but much waste.
I don’t have a small shuttle, just 2 rug shuttles which are at least twice as long as the scarf is wide, so I wound yarn on my little bobbin & started weaving with it.
I LOVE IT!
Damn, I was really hoping this wouldn’t turn out to be another hobby I enjoy, but once the warp is on, a plain weave is really mindless and soothing. Fast, too.
I think there’s about 18 inches done so far, and despite the mistakes, I can definitely see myself wearing this:
See the squiggle up on the left? And kind of a round spot on the lower right? Well, the round spot is a ditch of sorts, which I discovered is from not having the warp tight enough. I undid the warp, straightened and re-tied it, and now it’s nice and tight and even. The squiggle is where I stopped & restarted with the warp done properly.
I’m just going to continue on until it’s long enough to be a proper scarf, then hope that the washing machine will work its magic and make the chenille have a velvety finish. If it’s wearable, fine. If not, I will consider it part of the learning experience.
In the meantime, I finally got Deb Chandler’s Learning to Weave, and it is an EXCELLENT resource! Now I know all the things I did wrong the first time, and I’m looking forward to putting the next warp on.
Weave on!
