Traveling for the holidays and I'd really love to be able to move a WIP with me. Has anyone moved their rigid heddle from one place to the next and been able to maintain tension?

Barring wet finishing and cutting the neckhole, of course. If I’d planned ahead I probably could’ve woven the neckhole in, but I hadn’t decided on a style then. It’s coarse, but 8-12 threads per inch was the style back then! Woven to 19 inches wide and approximately 54 inches long.

The style is speculative and not a reproduction of a specific garment, but it’s pretty plausible with the technology of the time. The fringes will be braided, and might be beaded if I’m feeling really fancy.

Wool was Briggs and Little Tuffy wool, acquired on sale as ‘seconds’.

Hello! It's the time of year where, historically, the sub gets a lot of questions from well-meaning friends of family who want to give a gift to a weaver. I thought it would be nice as a sub for us to crowdsource a pool of information to help everyone out.

So... what do you like to weave and what do you wish for? Where do you like to buy supplies? Do you have any recommendations for tools or books? When you were starting to weave, what did you wish you had?

Feel free to shout out local sellers/your favorite Etsy/etc-- just note where you're located. It would be especially helpful if folks located outside of North America could contribute places they like to shop for supplies, since we also get a higher volume of those requests at this time of year. :)

Rules note: please keep self promo in the self promotion thread. :)

I'll contribute my thoughts in a comment (in a few hours, day job, lol).

I've kind of gotten hooked on the basic elements of weaving as I've taught myself to darn wool socks. Something about watching thread turn into fabric just brings me joy.

I'm pretty much decided on picking up a rigid heddle loom to start developing my skills in a way that has more uses than just mending. I'm leaning toward the Ashford 24" rigid heddle loom.

As a real beginner, I'm hoping some of you here with more experience might be willing to advise me out of your expertise. Are there reasons to consider a different make/model/manufacturer that I'm unaware of? Also, unless I'm mistaken, Ashford looms are available through distributors but not from Ashford directly. Can anyone recommend a reputable distributor that I should consider buying from? The price seems to be about the same everywhere I look ($299 USD). Besides the tools that come with the kit, are there any other accoutrements I should consider essential to add right from the beginning? I already have a yarn ball winder.

Any and all advice and guidance will be much appreciated!

I bought a 32" 8 shaft loom back at the peak of my weaving phase about 3 years ago... And haven't used it once. I'm trying to downsize my craft hoard and the money would be a big help

So should I sell it on eBay or Facebook marketplace?

My hesitation with eBay is having to do the whole rigamarole with the post office to ship it since it's fully assembled, and I've never sold on eBay before. But I feel like I'm more likely to get a buyer, there is someone selling the same loom and it has 35 watchers.

Also how should I price it? When I first bought it years ago it was about $900 taxes and shipping put it just above $1000, a new one sells for $1165, the one on eBay is listed as $1400. I've never used it so it's basically new , so I was thinking 1000 + what ever shipping would be. But is it slezzey to sell it for more than I paid?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

*Spouse

Hi everyone,

I'm purchasing a couple of unwieldy, long 45" Leclerc lease sticks for my wife as a Christmas gift. I wouldn't know where to start as far as local vendors, if there are any, that carry Leclerc, and the shipping cost doubles the price of the order at both Gather Textiles, the Leclerc website, and The Woolery. No chance I can make a day trip anywhere, we have two young children. We live on the east coast of the US - is this typical? I'll obviously do it if it's just the way things are, but I don't want to get fleeced because I'm (admittedly) ignorant.

I’m a fairly novice weaver and trying to weave a table runner on a rigid heddle loom using 10/2 cotton. I am loosely following a pattern from Weaving Today and using a 15 dent reed. I’m a little surprised by the size of the gaps between my threads. Is this to be expected with this kind of fiber or have I done something wrong?

(The red in the photo is scrap, green is the start of the actual pattern.)

I’ve used this loom for a long time but the few projects I’ve started with it I ended up scrapping because I let them sit for too long and the tension got too loose, or the cats pulled at it. This is the one I will not give up on.

I plan on this being a landscape sort of weaving. Using all these crazy yarns I’ve hoarded for too long.

Is there anything here in the first few steps that looks off or looks like it could be improved? I’m happy with it so far but would not want to ignore a problem for too long when I’m halfway in. I have some colored roving I plan on using for clouds/bushes/etc and am excited to finally use it.

Can new looms still be purchased directly from Macomber? I'm specifically interested in an 8 shaft baby mac. Just curious if anyone knows before I dig deeper into it!

ICYMI: I was gifted an Ashford Katie. I do have a 12” Louët Erica and a 27.5” Louët Jane, with my main loom being my 35.5” Louët Spring. The idea was to have the Katie replace the Erica and Jane.

Pros: it’s really easy to direct warp since it doesn’t come with a raddle. You can fold the breast beam down and beater up to make access to the heddles easy, it does get really good tension, levers are easy to operate (Erica and Jane levers can be stiff as they click into place), folds and stores very easily with a warp on the loom.

Cons: sleying the reed is really awkward, Ashford doesn’t make a stand for this loom, the breast beam is really high which makes finding a surface at the right height to place it on difficult, very small weaving area, have to stand up to advance warp which isn’t great for a small loom.

Possible deal breaker: you have to disassemble the castle to add or remove heddles. This is the same as other Ashford table looms and is a significant disadvantage on such a narrow loom. I’ve divided the heddles in half on each side and there still isn’t enough from for a 10.5” wide warp. The widest is probably 9” between the heddles.

i enjoy the different textures, and types of fiber i used in this weave

https://preview.redd.it/2elou2jp794e1.jpg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad63f036970f4c6731ed6af649f9f1fa6554beff

https://preview.redd.it/v1a8b6vo794e1.jpg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=04339d96c90c113381357e8cc6818a10e056d2ec

I bought a second-hand reed that doesn't look rusty, but the dents do feel a bit sharp. Is there anything I can do about this? (Sand it? Vinegar? Soda?)

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I don't know where else to ask. I have a small business and I would like to start making machine weaved jackets, like the ones from Sugar Street Weavers. Where do you start? What sort of machine would you need?

My mom got a new coffee table kind of a while ago, and has been wanting a table runner for it…. her only request was for it to be long enough to hang off the ends of the table and be in creams and browns. I’m really happy with how it’s turning out, I hope she likes it.

This is my first project with 40/2 linen and I’m really pleased to announce that it was much easier to work with than I expected. I’d heard all sorts of things about how linen is fragile and finicky, especially regarding humidity. I had read that I needed to spritz the warp with water to keep it flexible (or lay a damp towel over the warp in back). Happily, I did none of that and had only one warp thread break, and that was because it was twisted with its neighbor.

My house humidity is all over the place - I’m in the PNW. So some days it’s rainy and 100% humidity, and lately it’s been rather dry because we’ve had our wood stove going in the same room as the loom. So variations of humidity haven’t affected me at all.

This is the end of the warp, and it’s tied to a dummy warp. The dummy warp is 8/2 cotton and is used so that I can weave the very last inch of the linen, which is far more expensive.

I’m going to make this into curtains for my loom room and possibly some bread basket wraps, depending on how it wet finishes and shrinks.

Ugh.

First let me say I am not a beginner to crafting in general, and I at some point in my life did a basic DIY cardboard loom and wove some placemats maybe 100 years ago lol. I want to weave tapestries or maybe squares that can later be joined somehow (if my passion extends that far).

I have seen a lot of recommendations for looms across many blogs and let me tell you my needs in the faint hope that someone can offer an opinion and suggestion.

I tire easily so large projects will not be a thing anytime soon if ever. I'd like to focus on mastering the skill of weaving before I foist any creations off on unsuspecting family and friends who will be honor bound to say "Oh this is lovely" before stashing it in the back of a closet.

I have a decent amount of space, and in my head I am weaving tartans on a giant floor loom, ready to clothe bekilted Scotsmen as they roam the Highlands. However, in reality coasters or small wall hangings are likely all i will manage.

Lastly, price is not terribly important, but I do not want to waste $200 on a loom and 6 months from now abandon it as I have so many other crafty ideas. (I bought the Cricut bundle for $200 2 years ago, unboxed it, set it up and promptly never used it, I did resell it for its cost though). I think I am further along than your standard kids' square plastic potholder-maker, but maybe not by much.

I have seen the creations in this reddit group and yall are some PROS i say. gorgeous weaving. I aspire to be first functional and we can work on gorgeous later on.

Thanks in advance for any ideas on what loom to start out with and mayb e how to choose materials for it (I mean, do you jsut weave random yarn, or what?)

<3

There is a mistake in it I need to fix and I wish I'd planned what I was going to make before I arrive it, as the colour change it a bit too spaced to do most of what I'd like to do with it. Perhaps I'll cut it and make a teddy or something 🤔

I'm weaving without a reed (can't afford $200 to replace the whole beater unit on the Dorothy I'm fixing up) and due to the pattern I'm getting draw-in at certain areas. I was thinking about some way to keep the heddles from sliding like clips but those are too wide??

My first non-scarf project. I had to cut my progress free due to tension issues and I was hoping to fix the remaining warp. I have learned many things and am dying laughing at the yarn barf. 😂

About 20 years ago, my Irish cousin, who would have been in her 50s-60s at the time, gave my American aunt a wool cloth whose weave/pattern had significance to her family. I’m trying to figure out what that significance was.

My aunt and her husband were visiting County Donegal and the family there for the first time. This cousin and her husband invited them to stay in her home and showed them around the places to see in the village and surrounds. Before they left, the cousin told them to wait, popped down to the village, and came back having bought a gift of a length of woolen cloth that she said was “[a/the] family [weave/pattern],” which my aunt ought to have before she left.

Assuming this wasn’t a prank gift— which it seems a bit too nice to be— I’m trying to figure out what she meant. My best guess is that a bunch of family members worked producing Donegal tweed or something and therefore it’s part of family history? Does anyone here have a clue as to what kind of significance a weaving pattern/technique could have?

Adding pictures of the cloth, which I tentatively think may be donegal tweed, in a comment below.