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State of the Loom 2012

This is the condition of my loom on new year's day 2011. Sorry, I mean 2012. That's just been pointed out to me by an observant and alert individual sat beside me. Cheers for that :-)

Currently I'm weaving a woollen rug with a cotton string warp. 200 ends at like 6epi i think. Yes, it is, I remember. It's not difficult to remember.


 There's the back of the loom, it's all got old tablet-woven bands hanging off it and random bits of fabric.


 And that's the front, I'm nearly at the end of the current rug. I've already woven one rag rug out of old jeans (took a while to turn them into strips). As it goes actually, the aforementioned individual on the couch here has reminded me that she thinks that rug that I wove from jeans is just like one she saw on Anthropolgie's website, which I assume she was studying prior to attempting to get a job there. Apparently they started in Pennsylvania, big now. Shops all over the place. I'm not actually sure what exactly they sell, but I don't get out much.

Anyway, the one I'm weaving just now is wool. Just wool, yarn from Texere. Nice stuff, but slightly unpredictable.


 See that at along the top (not the christmas lights, the other thing) is kind of a raddle. See I tried warping it up without a raddle, because I've got used to beaming warps without a raddle, but it turns out you just can't beam a rug warp without a raddle. So I rebeamed after banging a nail into the top bar once every half-inch.

The heartbreaking thing about this is that I'm a proponent of the metric system, but I still find it stupidly difficult to wrench myself away from feet and inches. Yards of course, are completely foreign to me. I understand it's American for "driveway"


And that's the cloth beam. Looks satisfyingly thick because it's got a big chunky ragrug on it. Makes me cheerful. hurrah!

 So that's the state of my loom at the start of the new year. Huzzah!

Andrew

Comments

Meg said…
A cheerful 2012 to you and the person on the couch, too. A yard is approx 1m, or one's back garden. Funny I grew up with metric, but as regards epi, I can't get my head around metric, even if my mom converts it for me.

Look forward to seeing your work in the coming year, Andy.
Andrew Kieran said…
And a happy new year to you too meg :-) It's always good to see you here.
Trapunto said…
Yep, yard is American for garden, but since most people have no use for any part of their yard but the driveway...

This kind of weaving looks like a real workout for the arms and back. It does look really great on the cloth beam, though. Look forward to seeing it on your floor.
Andrew Kieran said…
well, it's not too hard, what with using a shed stick and all. The ppm isn't exactly high here :)

The one you see there just now is to replace the rug I made for my mother 3 or 4 years ago which is now distorted terribly as I didn't wet-finish it. I'm going to recycle the yarn on that rug and use it again.

I'm still sort of learning the best way to weave a rug. It takes a few years before you notice that it's getting screwed up by being handled every other day.

I wonder if I might add a stiff backing to it with some kind of rubber under or something to hold it's shape and grip the carpet.

Not for this one though, I might try that with regular heavy worsted woven normally, I'm going to try shamelessly copying the construction of Anta carpets when I get the chance sometime. Cool company that as it goes, they make lovely stuff

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