My first floor loom and a scarf project

I got my first floor loom as a birthday present from my husband. This was a great surprise as he has been against it as our space at home is limited. However, this foldable loom does not take much space and it was not expensive as it was bought second-hand. Still, it can be used to weave fabrics 90 cm wide with four shafts and six treadles. It was quite a job to bring it home as we didn’t want to disassemble it. It first looked like just folding it down would be enough to get it into our car but it was just an inch too wide! Finally, we had to strap it to the roof of the car in a freezing cold wind.

Here is it, standing at the corner of our bedroom.

This is the loom folded up just before I brought it in. It is light enough that even I could carry it alone.

Of course, the way the loom was, it wasn’t ready to be used. For that, I needed to order e few reed combs and bits and pieces in order to string it up. Luckily enough, my library had lots of good books that explained how all the parts were supposed to be connected together.

I got enough Texsolv cord but I was missing some pegs. Texsolv cord makes building the fabric easy as the cord consists of a series of loops through which you can push pegs to keep the cord in place. This also allows for easy adjustments.

The first time warping my loom

I decided that a narrow twill scarf was a perfect starting project. For that, I bought Ohut Pirkkalanka in orange, olive and brown. I love this yarn as it looks rustic but still is soft and not itchy at all. I hadn’t yet made the warping frame I now have, so I made the warp between the legs of two chairs.

My daughter helped me to wrap the warp in place while I held the warp tight. To keep the yarns in control I made a simple comb by driving a hundred nails to a piece of wood that fit into the reed slot.

It all sounds very simple when I write it here. In reality, I lost my raddle cross before I had threaded my loom and had to sort of improvise to get it back. Then I managed to get my yarns all tangled up several times when threading the heddles, so I had to spend an extra day untangling all the weird twists I had made by accident. Basically, I made all the beginner mistakes that taught me a lot! However, finally, I got everything in nice order and was ready to start. (Some small twists remained at the back behind the shafts but those didn’t matter.)

For those that are interested, my reed comb had 6 teeth per 1 cm.

What about the pattern? There are plenty of software to help design patterns. Most of them are expensive but many of them allow demo use. If I remember right, I used FiberWorks in demo mode to try different patterns and colour combinations. The demo doesn’t allow saving but I took a screen capture of the pattern I found the best.

Weaving

I had each of my colours on a shuttle of their own. I own only two boat shuttles so the brown yarn went on that simple shuttle. It was alright as there wasn’t that much brown in my design. I found out that a drill was a perfect tool for winding up the bobbins. Check out my tiktok where I show you how it works! I’m glad that I didn’t waste my money on an expensive bobbin winder.

Then it was just weaving. You can see some waviness on the twill-line at first when I was trying to get my density under control. I had my pattern printed out and next to me so I knew when to change the colours.

It only took a few days to weave this and I didn’t even weave that hard.

Finishing

I wove in all the yarn ends and then tied the warp ends to form a fringe. Then I washed the scarf and when it was dry, brushed it to get it super soft and fluffy.

The finished scarf

I am super happy with how this scarf turned out. Yes, there are mistakes but, for my first project, it is a very nice achievement that taught me a lot.

Now I’m planning more exciting weaving projects on my loom! Subscribe to this blog to follow my learning process! See you later!

Katja