I’ve run out of bobbins and shuttles on my current weaving, so have added butterflies of yarn as well. I could go make more shuttles or bobbins, but I’m having fun weaving. I had every intention of doing a simple striped woven scarf, which lasted not even half an inch before I had other ideas. Now we’ll just see where the weft takes me.

I’m not sure whether I continue to weave because I actually like it, or whether I just like the chance to make little wooden doo dads to weave with. I warped my new loom (and totally forgot to get a picture before I started weaving, oops), and decided I needed another long shuttle. I found some flame maple in my wood scraps and used the band saw to slice and shape a new shuttle. I did sand it down to 400 grit before I wrapped it with yarn, but I didn’t want to spend the time to finish it with tung oil. I’ll get to that later, or, I’ll use it so much it gets a natural finish.

I don’t weave with the loom on the floor, but my kitchen counter is seldom photo worthy!

Here is my exciting thing for the beginning of 2021: a new loom! It is a Schacht tapestry loom, which has heddle bars and a way to control warp tension. I felt that it would be the most flexible and easily stored commercial purchase. I wanted more room to weave than my frame loom provided, but didn’t want something that had a large footprint. It is rather larger than I anticipated, though! It doesn’t quite fit on my chair, so I’m glad I also purchased the A frame stand for it.

Now to get it warped!

I had a hard time finishing this weaving. I had the idea of forming shapes using only hatching, but my design was not a good and one. I wanted four basic leaf shapes, but half way through I realized that two of the shapes wouldn’t work the way I laid it out on the paper and I had to wing it. I also don’t like vertical lines, those were a missed opportunity for more hatched shapes. And I really don’t like that the yellow and green I picked for one area are too visually similar, so the shape is all but lost. But. Now it is done, can be used as a washcloth until it dies, and I can move on to other things!

My only motivation for finishing this is to move on to a new thing. Yay I get to put together something new! Blog post to follow. 😉

I’m trying out the tapestry weaving bobbins that I made the other day with my current weaving practice.

There is a bit of a learning curve with the bobbins. They work better when they are passed through the shed vertically, rather than horizontally as you would do with a shuttle, because then the yarn wrapped around doesn’t catch on the warp threads. Using a half hitch to secure the yarn on the bobbin works well, and it is much easier to pass the bobbin through a large area of the shed, compared to a yarn butterfly. I can also get down to just a few wraps on the bobbin, which means I have to deal with far less tail tucking. These bobbins are a bit big for my little frame loom, but they feel nice in my hand, so I’ll leave them as they are. They also make a pleasing clink noise when they tap together, which is not a weaving pro or con, but does make me happy, like listening to nice wooden wind chimes.