Here we go! This is made from 2 skeins of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in the Bittersweet colourway. I couldn’t be happier with it.

In progress:

In all its 7.5″ long glory, thanks to a bit of a miscalculation about loom waste (in that, the average amount of loom waste does not equal MY amount of loom waste on my loom):

Closeup of the tassels:

Detail of the weaving:

It’s just lovely, in my opinion. I was regretting buying the yarn for socks since nearly every project on Ravelry had such hideous pooling with it, but it’s perfectly suited to weaving I think! If I make any more as gifts, I might go a tad wider, and definitely a bit shorter. I’d use this yarn for weaving again.

I have finished a few other things, which will be forthcoming soon. Right now my big news is that I’m performing surgery on my forlorn Tilted Duster. The pictures are a touch gruesome, but if I’m as clever as I hope I am, I will be back with a much better fitting coat. Or 6.5 balls of frogged yarn, with 1.5 balls unused surplus, all of which could be re-purposed to a garment that will actually bloody fit. I had a hard time finding something on Ravelry that I liked, so if I had to rip this out, it will probably be something of my own design.

In a hideous breach of my self-imposed yarn embargo, I ordered 4 skeins of Cascade Eco+ in Plum. I will be making a Sylvi. Rubber room on standby, thanks. I don’t actually think it’ll be hard, just time consuming. I am overcome with need for that coat. NEED. Pattern has been purchased, and it’s stunningly clear and well laid out. The ladies over at Twist Collective know good editing! I’ve been happy with every pattern I’ve bought from them.

More finished objects coming soon!

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!