Yes. I now own a loom. A 15″ Schacht Flip Loom to be exact! So far, I like it a lot. Warping it is as big a deal as I’d heard; I spent some time admonishing myself for not getting the 20″ but I’m glad I have this one, actually. Warping something bigger would be quite beyond me right now, and if I do get on with weaving (which I think I will) I can always swap it for something bigger. Or have two looms. Who knows!
The project on it right now is just some seriously retro acrylic (white sport weight warp, minty green fingering weight weft) with approximately 10″ of warp. It’s not totally even since I ran out of yarn with about 4 ends to go, but since it was practice, I didn’t mind. (When I want to do something for real, I will bother to calculate.)
A lot of it is quite bad. The selvedges are pretty sloppy at the beginning, but as always happens with a bit of practice, I figured out how to use the shuttle and control the tension of the yarn before I beat it into place with the heddle.
One thing I can say about weaving so far is there’s A LOT of new vocabulary. Loads. What I have is called a rigid heddle loom, but as with anything else, not all looms are created equal. It’s considered a fairly beginner loom, however there are people that have figured out to make it do tons of things it may not have been intended to do. I’m content with this. One day, sometime in the future, I may want to try weaving on a “real” loom, which has more harnesses and shafts and many other things I forget the words for, but for now, I am really eager to see what I can accomplish with this loom. One thing I know I can do is add a second heddle, which would allow me to weave twice as fine as I might be able to currently. I am definitely in a hurry to order the other size heddles; I have a 10 dent heddle which seems appropriate for sport weight yarn, but there are also 8 dent (better for worsted weight yarn) and a 12 dent (better for fingering weight yarn). Like with knitting, using a different gauge heddle with different yarns will produce different results. I could warp my 10 dent heddle with laceweight using a light beat and get something very gauzey and loose, for example. I have to evaluate my stash to see what could (and should) be repurposed for weaving. Having the new heddles would make the process a little easier. If I ever figure out a good way to explain it all, I may make a page about it. I’ve found information remarkably difficult to come across so far.
So, I actually finished the piece pictured on the loom, but I’d like to see how I should finish it first before I post pictures. I don’t know how usable it’s going to be, but I should see how it softens after washing. I suppose I could make it into a little pouch!
OMG. You got a loom! Wow! Congrats!
Hey, don’t diss the rigid heddle! A lot of people consider rigid heddles fine looms in themselves, not beginner’s looms, and tons of cultures out there have done beautifully complicated weaving with looms less sophisticated than the Flip. (Seriously, is this chick using HUGE pick up sticks??? And don’t forget the tapestry loom isn’t very complicated, either.
)
I myself have no desire to “trade up” — not that I really consider it “up.”
IMO, I’d be trading bigger, or trading different, not up. All those shafts and harnesses make the loom look more like a machine than a fiber arts tool, to me, and I bet it’d take me way longer to warp one of those than to warp my Cricket! (And what if I really just want to make a plain weave scarf? No need for a monster loom for that…)
Anyway, none of this “real” loom stuff. The Flip is certainly a real loom, and while it’s true that not all looms are created equal, it’s more like not all people are created equal … Some of us are built for sprinting, some of us for lifting weights, and some of us for ballet, but if a sprinter turns ballerina, it’s not inherently an “upgrade.”
Have you found WeaveZine yet? They like rigid heddles, too. ;D
A very interesting post, found when I searched for weaving vocab–like you I’m finding there’s a LOT of new terms to learn!
I can beat your beginner’s loom, I think, as I’ve just got a Spears size 2 children’s loom cheap off eBay: the only way I could really justify a new hobby 
Still, it’s fun to play with and have a go, and now that I’ve made my first scarf, I understand a lot more what the articles and tutorials on bigger looms are referring to! As I don’t knit or crochet I’m also learning all about different wools, cottons and fibres and the different weights and types available.
I can recommend the publisher’s site for the magazine Hand Woven (sadly not in the shops here in the UK) (http://www.interweave.com/weave) which has some free patterns and a new scarf and bag pattern each month. And also this (http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/index.html) which is a bit geeky but it’s an archive of out-of-copyright articles, books, illustrations, etc about weaving, held by the University of Arizona, and all available to download as pdfs in full.