NEW INTRODUCTION TO THIS ARTICLE:
A very first weaving project needs to be a learning project. The project's only intent is to learn how to weave on your new rigid heddle loom. As when learning anything new, one needs to start with the very basics. When learning how to swim one starts out in the shallow end of the swimming pool. One does not go directly to the high diving board, and jump into the deep end of the pool. Similarly, when learning how to weave you need to do a basic project with inexpensive yarn. Do not use your best handspun or that really nice, but expensive yarn that caught your eye at the last fiber arts show you attended and just had to buy. Buy a cheap yarn in two contrasting colors of the same yarn. One will be your warp yarn and the other will be your weft yarn. The two contrasting colors are to show you clearly as you are learning how the warp and weft yarns interact with each other as you weave. Weave a plain weave - no fancy pattern weaves! You want a simple and basic balanced weave in which both the warp and weft show equally in the cloth you are weaving. Do not warp the full width of your loom. Center a warp of no more than 10" on a wide loom or 7" on a narrow loom on your heddle.This learning project does not need to be long - you could do a short 48" weave to learn with or if you want go a full 72" which is the typical length of a scarf. Use a yarn that matches the dent on your heddle. Many looms come in the box with either an 8 or 7.5 dent heddle - this heddle is perfect for a #4 worsted yarn. Some looms come in the box with a 10 dent heddle - this is perfect for a #3 Sport. DK, or Baby yarn. Your warp yarn must be strong enough to withstand the tension that needs to be put on it by the loom so that the weave forms correctly. Do this pull test - take the yarn at an end in two hands - pull your hands apart hard and with a snap. If the yarn breaks or starts to come apart - IT IS NOT A YARN TO USE AS WARP. If the yarn is fuzzy or sticky, it is not a good yarn for warp or weft FOR A BEGINNER.
A first weave can be very frustrating - if you have too high an expectation of what it MUST be as you learn. Again, you are learning. The only thing to be expected is you learn to weave - and you will! Many first time weavers have been able to teach themselves with the help of a good book (Inventive Weaving on a Little Loom by Syne Mitchell is the best) and videos on YouTube. Now, if you ask what I am making, the answer is a learning project. What will it be when I am finished? You will know when you are finished. Don't start out with the idea that I have to make SOMETHING. That can only lead to frustration if it is not coming out exactly as you had pictured before you even warped the loom. What is you make mistakes? So what! Mistakes are what we learn from. Don't rush through the project. Allow yourself time to absorb what you are doing and learning. And also this allows you to start to relax and enjoy what you are doing. What if it doesn't come out? Do not get discouraged. You will not be the first weaver - new or experienced - to cut a project off the loom and start again.
Most important - HAVE FUN! Weaving can be addictive! It seems to be that more so than some other crafts and hobbies.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE STARTS HERE:
When I was ready to start weaving my first project ever on the rigid heddle loom, I decided that this project was going to be a test project. I would use this project to try different things. I would try a firm beat, a light beat, and a medium beat. I would try a pattern in the warp. I would try something called hemstitching on one end (usually you hemstitch both ends). I will go into details about hemstitching in another article. When this test project came off the loom, I would try wet finishing the weaving to see what the result was.
*****A word about wet finishing. Weavers will tell you that when the weaving comes off the loom, it is NOT cloth UNTIL it is wet finished. Wet finishing brings all of the fibers together. How you wet finish depends on the fiber you wove with. Cotton is wet finished differently than wool. Acrylic is wet finished differently from either of those. Some will tell you that acrylic does not benefit from wet finishing - I disagree. I see a big positive change in acrylic after it is wet finished. Another article will go into detail about wet finishing.
I decided right from the start that I would keep a journal of my weaving projects. I used a basic word processor to do this and stared with my test project. It is because of that journal that I can share all of the details of that project with you here.
I have a large stash of yarns from a knitting machine that I have not used in years and also yarn from various other crafts. I had several balls of a commonly found cotton yarn called Sugar and Cream. You can find this yarn in almost every chain craft store, Joann's Fabrics, and Walmart sells this renames and packaged as Peaches and Cream (same exact yarn made by the same manufacturer with a different label and name. This is 100% yarn of worsted weight and 4 ply which is perfectly sized for an 8 or 7.5 dent heddle. I had enough solid Delft Blue for a 45" long and a 12" width. I had enough variegated Blue Swirl for weft. Remember that the end result had no determined purpose other than to be a test of weaving. My intent when I started was to stop weaving when I reached 14" long and I would see when it came off the loom - and after wet finishing what the end result would really be.
There are weaving calculators. Most weaving books have a fill in form which specifies what to calculate when. The weaving calculators on the web are either used right on their own web page or downloaded to put into spreadsheet software. If you don't have spreadsheet software on your computer you can download a free - really free with no catch - office suite called LibreOffice which is Microsoft compatible and has a full spreadsheet program within. Using one of these calculators, I determined that I would need a full ball of Sugar and Cream for warp and almost a full ball - 31 yards for weft.
Warping would require that 96 slots and holes needed to be warped which means there would be 48 threads of warp in slots and 48 slots of warp in holes. The heddle is marked and this should be easy. Determine the start and end slot to put the loops of warp threads through when direct single peg warping and I had to go seven inches from each side of the middle. Now, what I discovered doing this was that I was warping 98 threads. Why? Putting a ruler up against the heddle I could see that what should be an inch was not exactly an inch. This may have to do with the metric conversion from a European heddle made in centimeters to inches. This was not a problem. I just deleted one slot and hole on the end of the warp and finished the warp two threads short to make 96 threads. I also learned right then that to make really sure where you will start and stop use your markings on the heddle as a starting point and then just count the slots and holes to make sure they coincide with what the warp needs to be. I use a piece of yarn tied through the starting slot around the top of the heddle and another through the ending slot . This tells you immediately where to start and where to end when warping. On warp widths that I use often I keep that yarn tied in place.
I set the warp peg 45" away from the rear beam of the loom. I attached the peg to a wood snack table. I was not sure if this would work and on this project I found it to be OK - but with later projects this was a disaster waiting to happen. The best thing to attach your warping peg to is something that is either heavy and will not move or stationary.
I use a long cloth tape measure (one that is at least 120" long) to measure the distance from the peg to the back of the warp beam on the loom. These tape measures are not hard to find and Walmart has one for the best price.
Sugar and Cream yarn is sold wound on a ball and this is an easy yarn to pull off the ball as you go along to warp or wind your stick shuttle. There is no need to wind this yarn from a skein into a ball as is often done with yarn that is sold as a skein. This is another reason to use this yarn for a first project. The yarn is also strong and has little stretch. This makes this yarn very easy to weave.
With the loom warped, I saw that the 32" stick shuttles that came with my loom were a bit long for a 12" warped project to weave. They would work but a shorter shuttle would be better. I decided to make a 16" shuttle. I will do an article about how to make a stick shuttle with simple woodworking skills. If you know someone with a basement or garage workshop it takes very little time and money to make a shuttle. Shuttles are for sale in all sizes from various weaving retailers on the Internet if you need to purchase shorter shuttles.
I wound the weft yarn on the shuttle and I was finally READY TO WEAVE!
Weaving was not hard and very relaxing. I tried different things as I went along. I started without hemstitching and with my first throw of the shuttle I left several inches of yarn hanging out to work in on the next throw from that side. This is simple. When you open the shed when you get back to that side, you tuck that tail into the shed and and then down between two warp threads to hand down under the loom. Then you take your shuttle and weave through the open shed. When you beat the yarn with your heddle that tail is locked in and will not be noticeable.
I really was enjoying weaving! When I reached the 14" of length that I intended to weave I decided to just keep going for as far as I could and still leave yarn at the end for fringe. The end would be hemstitched so when I was at the end I made sure that I had five continuous lengths of yarn the size of the width of the warp that I would use to hemstitch. Again, this will make more sense when I explain hemstitching in its own article.
When I took the weaving off the loom it measured 11 inches wide - from pull in which is common - and 25" long. After I wet finished this piece it became 23" long and 10.5" in width. The yarn pulled in and also shrank - cotton shrinks - approximately 8%. I also found that this yarn's dark colors - the dark blue in the Blue Swirl ran. Others report also that Sugar and Cream (and Peaches and Cream) dark colors will run. The result was not bad.
I found one warp skipped in one spot which can happen if the shuttle slips below a warp thread instead of moving over it. There is a way to fix this. It was only visible from one side and I left it.
Now what had I made. It looked good. It was too good to just set aside - and so, I had woven a short table runner which sits on our dining room table since. I loved weaving it and could not wait to start my next - real and not test - project.
