My Monday nights are now occupied by a weaving class. I’ve been wanting to try out weaving for a while, as an extension of my love for all things “fibery”. Conveniently, I found out that a weaving class would begin in January only a few minutes from my house. I’ve had 2 classes so far with 8 more to go including tonight’s class.
In this class are a few advanced weavers and 2 novices including myself. There are a bunch of floor looms as well, from pretty big to much smaller like the one I’m using.
During the first class we were told to pick two weaving yarns and were shown how to create the warp on the warping pegs and then we were shown how to attach the warp to the loom. Then started the back-breaking work of threading each strand through the heddles on 4 harnesses. This part was completed at the beginning of the second class. Then started the fun part, the actual weaving part.
The teacher has us do a sampler, with the the weave changing every few inch so that we can become familiar with some of the main weaves. The fact that the warp changes gives a different look to the same weave.
In the picture above you can see that the first third of the warp (the vertical strands) is green, the second third is red and the third is one green strand and one red strand alternating. The weft are the horizontal strands. I’m alternating working with the red and the green, changing every couple inches. Each weave looks different depending on the warp and the weft as you can better see below:
I’m quite enjoying my class, even if it is back-breaking. I’m hoping that we can work on something of our own before the class is over as I would love to make a scarf out of some of my yarn. I would love to be able to have my own loom at home, but after having to sell my spinning wheel I can’t rationalize the purchase of one. I guess I’ll have to be happy with the class!
If you’re more interested in weaving, here’s a link to a wikipedia entry on weaving.
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