Little Fish Creations

This was intended to be a quick little towel warp and I wanted to focus on fun stuff like treadle tie ups and adjustments. But with this loom, with this warp, with this project; I had problems with draw in and then I had problems with ends breaking… lots and lots of ends!

At great expense I mail ordered a temple (stretcher), and when I first used it I broke 8 ends all at once.  I wasn’t happy… oh no, I was not happy at all!

After replacing all the ends I realised I was headed for some annoying tension issues and cut about 3/4” off each side of the warp.  I cut out all the problem warp ends and started afresh.  The purple sides are skinnier than they were, but my sanity is restored.

With proper(ish) temple use the weaving has been progressing smoothly – thank goodness!

This has happened in my life since I last posted:

It is a Glimakra Standard Counterbalance loom with 120cm weaving width, 8 shafts and 10 treadles (actually 9 treadles because as one is missing).  I am very excited and a bit daunted.

It is so thrilling to have a big, sturdy, capable loom and I warped it up for a rag rug right away.

I feel a little bit out of my depth with this loom and I need to frequently remind myself to take it ‘one step at a time’ rather than feeling overwhelmed by it all.  I have to trust, that soon, I will feel sure of myself with this new tool.

In other news:

Recently, in preparation for the ‘hoped for’ floor loom purchase, I did a big reorganisation and had a new floor installed in my workroom. In order to free up floor space in my room I’ve put away a large folding table and set up a workstation and pegboard inside one of the wardrobes.  All this has created a workspace that feels open an uncluttered and inviting.

In fact, I’m going to stop typing now and head on up there.  The heater is on and I have some… sewing to do.

This was meant to be a stash busting project; busting all my stash of 8ply knitting wool that I probably wont knit.

The problem was: Most of my stash was used up in the warp which was 3.5m long and 15inches wide (metric/imperial? meh!).  So I had to go out and buy more yarn, and then I had to go out and buy more yarn, and then I had to go out and buy yarn a third time! (I weighed the cloth once it was off the loom and it was 670g or 12.5 balls of yarn)

Once again I have chosen to use a rosepath draft and my intentions of using this as a sampler for different treadlings didn’t eventuate.  I just liked what I had too much to fiddle with it.

I wanted a stable fabric here so I alternated the diamond pattern rows (8ply yarn doubled) with one row of tabby (plain weave). If you squint at the above picture you might be able to see what I’m talking about.

The fabric is thick and was pretty stiff when taken off the loom.  I toyed with making a floor rug instead but was convinced by my weaving buddies to continue with my plans for a big floor pillow.  The fabric did soften a lot after being washed – and I knew it would from my experience with previous projects… but still, it can be hard to visualise when you have that raw fabric there in front of you.

So here it is!  I seamed the three panels by hand using ladder/mattress stitch.  All other seams were done with my sewing machine which was a lot easier than I anticipated!  I did sew the zip in by hand though and It looks almost invisible (yay!!!).

I’m also really happy with the pom pom corners

The yarn was chosen by Jasper and given to me for my birthday. I wove it into a scarf and gave it back to Jasper

Self striping sock yarn looks great in a weave!