(And no, you Monty Python Fans... I do not mean a man with three buttocks).
I do mean a glorious new way for me to use up my stash.
Saturday's class was glorious. Wonderful. Delightful. Fun. A smashing success..... and ultimately, expensive.
This charming lady
has lured me down a new and delightful path. For those not yet fortunate to have met her, that's Nancy McRay of The Woven Art, where their motto is knitcrochetweavespindye....happy. I like that.
I also like her!
And... I like her toys. When we got to class these were on all the tables:
Allow me introduce you to the 20" Rigid Heddle Loom. This one is called the Flip (it's by Schacht).
The first thing we learned how to do is warp the loom via the "direct warping" method. I have no photos of the process -- I was too busy learning. Whichy and I took the class together, and we encountered a few technical difficulties with some yarn that did NOT want to participate (snags, breaks, tangles), and some other issues with yarn size that required a swap of heddles. This meant that we felt a tad rushed during the warping process, foolishly fearing that we were horridly behind and would hold up the class.
But all warped, my little Flip looked like this:
If you look closely, you can see that there is a problem -- I didn't discover the problem until quite a bit later, but it turned out not to be a crisis.
Ready to go!
At first, I tried using some Lambs Pride, but didn't like the result. I knew that the solid stripe on the one side would make me crazy. I don't do color block well.
Thanks to Whichy, however, I was able to switch to some unknown sock yarn, and love the results. What you see there, in the sock section, is me "beating" the yarn a bit too vigorously. But I liked the weft-heavy result so much that I continued in that vein through the end.
I took this picture just before we broke for lunch! We dashed upstairs, summoned a cart, packed out all of our luggage, and checked out of the hotel. We nibbled the leftovers from previous meals, and returned to the classroom. Despite having about two hours for lunch, we likely took less than forty-five minutes.
We were not alone. For a few minutes, there were three of us, happily weaving away. Then there were four. By the time Nancy came back the room was full of all of its students, merrily weaving along.
Most of the people in the class were using at least worsted weight yarns for their weft, and thus they finished their 72" long scarves/dish towel sets/place mats before the end of class. Which is good, because we all got to see how to END the project. Whichy and I, using our sock-weight yarns did not finish.
Oh no. Whatever could we do.
Well, there's a cool thing about the Flip. With the Flip, you can do this:
Or, from another angle...
Or, from the other side...
And then, when you unfold it again,
What's that? the background looks familiar to you? You think you've seen other things photographed there, like maybe, a pair of Chrysopolis shawls? I did say that it was an expensive class didn't I? But it would have been more expensive to wait -- we (students in the class) got discounts on the looms, since once we'd used them they could no longer be sold as "new". And... we avoided shipping charges too.
I am so very glad I was able to sell my wheels. They made this not only possible, but easy.
I should finish this project in a few more hours.
I'd call that a successful class, wouldn't you?
(My stash closet is doooomed).
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