knitting kitchen

Well, I’ve been doing a little knitting lately. The tendonitis in my thumbs got much worse and I’ve struggled to keep myself from knitting into the pain. How do you say, “addict”? For the record, the damage was already done before Dale entered my life. I am continuting to work on Whiteface Mountain, finishing both sleeves and am now working on the body, one 298 stitch row at a time.

The pain in my hands has led me to explore other ways to immerse myself in fibers. Welcome, Mr. Kromski! I bought my rigid heddle loom from Susan at the Woolroom last week. She is a remarkable woman, so knowledgeable and kind. I am enjoying how the challenge presented by tendonitis has taken me on a new and magical adventure.

I brought Kromski home and without watching the video (I couldn’t seem to score television time with all the new episodes of Mythbusters airing), I managed to turn this box of parts into a rigid heddle loom/warping board. I wanted to use stuff from my considerable stash for the warp as I figured whatever I wove the first time out would likely be trash anyway. I found some Bamboo by Southwest Trading Co. and a little bit of 2nd Time Cotton (K1C2) and wrapped my little heart out. Here’s how it looked:

Next, came the task of putting the warp onto the loom. This process taught me a few things. First, bamboo breaks very easily. Second, trying to get the warp wound on the rear beam (before work?!) would have been easier with two people. Third, with this rigid heddle, a finer, sturdier fiber would have been better — much less pleading with the threading hook to make it happen for me. Ultimately, I decided not to use some of the warp because I didn’t like the quality of the 2nd Time Cotton. So, rather than two blue stripes, my random 1st project will have one.

I tried weaving with different fibers: handspun from Wool & Sheep (leftover from the Llama Chullo Project), Noro Kureyon (the color changes were lost in the weaving. It ended up looking like brown, unevenly spun yarn), and Farmhouse Yarn hand-dyed merino. This is how the Farmhouse wove:

My determination so far is, I am with weaving as I am with knitting. I like working with softer yarns and I love color. The handspun naturals made very Scandanavian-looking weaving, very simple and clean. It actually looked like the fabric on the seats of some teak chairs I had in the 80s. Although I have yards of warp left on the loom with which to play, I expect I’ll be ripping it off by this evening and rewarping the loom a bit wider with a darker or colored cotton.

This is a close-up pic of my first attempt. Now I’m just wondering how long it will be before a full-sized floor loom finds it’s way into my home?