Several years ago I was given a small loom. It’s a little bigger than a breadbox. It was cool but sat displayed, but lonely, in our living room. A couple of months ago, I gathered it up, and carried it to a very cool shop in our town, named the Eugene Textile Center. www.eugenetextilecenter.com. If you are into fiber art of any kind, spinning, weaving, dyeing, etc. this is the shop to contact or, better yet, visit in person. there are always upcoming classes being added to the schedule.

So one day last November, I decided to take the loom over to ETC. After looking at it for a few minutes and turning it so that the correct side was down, Suzie told me that I owned a child’s table loom that probably dates from the 50’s. She checked it over and determined that I needed a few parts to make the loom functional. There are several similar ones sitting on top of a cabinet. One of them is made of metal and painted black. It is a Structo, the same name that I have seen on some old big metal toy trucks. After measuring the loom and determining what size we would need, she put in an order for 200 string heddles. I was also told how to fabricate the additional pieces needed by cutting dowels and some thin pieces of strip aluminum to the right length. On the way home, I stopped at the building supply store and picked up the dowel and a strip of aluminum. At home I cut them to length and smoothed them so they were ready to use. I then hand sanded the loom and then applied a coat of cherry stain. You can’t believe how that nearly forgotten toy was transformed. The stain woke it up!

While we were volunteering at South Beach State Park in December, Suzie called and told me that the heddles had arrived. After we arrived home in January, I took the loom back to ETC and I had a beginning weaving lesson with Suzie. During that day she helped me set up the loom by stringing the heddles. I was shown how to figure how much yarn I needed for a project and then how to set up the warping board. After doling out the required amount of yarn on the warping board, she showed me how to tie strings at strategic locations along the length of the warp to help keep the yarn from becoming tangled. Then she proceeded to show me how to string the warp “threads” through the reeds and then through the heddles. For those of you that don’t know about looms, the heddles cause the yarns to part to allow the shuttle to travel back and forth between the warp threads making the pattern (the weft).

So as a first project, I wanted to weave a scarf for R. Her favorite color is pink so while at ETC, I picked out a package of hot pink yarn for the warp and a mixture of pink, orange, and red yarn for the weft. They were both of cotton because R can not handle the scratchiness of wool. The combination looked good to me so I went with it. Suzie helped me string the warp on the loom. I had no idea what I was doing, I just followed her direction. Setting up the loom takes time and patience. The actual weaving goes fairly quickly and gives you a sense of accomplishment as the pattern develops. R’s pink scarf turned out great. She gets lots of compliments when she wears it.

Having #1 scarf turn out so well, got me excited to do #2. My son and his family came down to visit us and my daughter in law, H , went with me to ETC. She has a talent in many venues, one of them is fabric. She sews great quilts, dice bags, hangings, and probably anything else she tries. Getting back to my story, I had H pick out yarn for the scarf I planned to make her for her birthday. She picked a sage green warp and green, purple and brown for the weft in a yard that was cotton and bamboo. The yarn was thinner so it required more threads per inch than #1. It was challenging, causing me of back out early on to fix a situation, but turned out fine in the end. I sent it to H for her birthday and hope she likes it.

Time to start on #3. I chose a light purple cotton yarn and a mixed purple, green cotton yarn for the weft. I strung the warp through adjacent reeds instead of every other as in #1. Setting up went well and weaving the pattern displayed ok, but upon finishing it noticed that the scarf felt a bit stiff, compared to #1.

With #4 I decided to use the repeat the colors as #3 but use every other reed. After using all the light purple yarn on the warping board and not having enough to complete the scarf, I had an idea. Why not use some dark purple too? I needed 20 ends ( meaning 40 lengths of yarn the required 60 inches plus 18 inches for overage). I needed 14 lengths of dark purple. I was going to place the dark yarns on each outside edge.

I discovered that I had an uneven number of light purple, so I decided to put one light purple in the middle and then a dark one on each side of it. I was quite proud of myself for thinking of it. So I proceeded. The scarf was completed and looks great. I gave it as a gift to a friend of the family who lives in AZ. I hope she enjoys it as much as I did making it. Unfortunately, the only photo I have of it is on my computer and I am not sure how to get it to my computer.

So now, what do I do next? I want to weave with the yarn that I have spun myself, but I am still having fun experimenting.

P.S. I have started on No. 5 using a chocolate brown warp and a multi-colored gray, gold, sage green yarn for the weft. I’m making it longer (70 inches) and narrower about (3+ inches) as per R request. It looks good so far.