SELLING YOUR WEAVING

 This is a very long article but I did not want to leave anything out – so read on and keep going to the end.

Most of us weave because we enjoy it and did not start weaving with the idea of going into business with it. After weaving for awhile one begins to accumulate a lot of things they have woven and starts wondering what they are going to do with it all. There are just so many scarves, shawls, table runners, napkins, towels, etc. that we and our immediate family need.  Then you start giving them as gifts but unless you have an ever growing extended family and group of friends, there are just so many things off your loom that they need or want.  Of course, there are charities that welcome anything warm and would love for you to donate the scarves off your loom. All of this is a way to put what you have woven to use, but it does not bring in any money to put to buying more yarn – so that you can continue weaving. That is when you might start thinking about selling your weaving. This is when you start thinking about extending your hobby into a business – not a full time business, but a side business that can support your weaving habit. If this is not you – and never will be you, you can stop reading right here because the rest of this article is going to be my sharing my experience and tips on selling your weaving. I can well understand if you never want to sell what you weave. My good wife is like this. She is a very talented hand embroiderer and she does not sell the many art pieces that she has embroidered over the years. She says that if she got into selling it, it would no longer be fun – and I understand that too.  But she has sold other craft she has made over the years and I have as well.

We went into the craft business as a sideline to make some money over 50 years ago. We have done local craft shows and sales, sold at galleries, sold at consignment shops, and sold through art exhibitions.  Between us we have created art in many mediums.  We have both made and sold dolls. She created a line of small, hand stitched teddy bears that she sold. She has made and sold baby quilts. I have worked in leather and sold the belts and leather accessories that I have made. I have worked in wood and particularly on a lathe and sold the many creations that have come out of my woodshop.  While none of this could ever support us, it was a way for us to extend our hobbies to bring a very small amount of additional income in. None of this before I started this site, included weaving. The idea to sell weaving came a year or so later from when I got my rigid heddle loom.

There are many business requirements that are necessary to comply with in many states in the US and I am sure there are similar in other countries. I will go into these toward the end of this article but I will say here that if they are required where you reside they are NOT to be ignored.

 So let’s get going with the basics of selling your weaving and we shall start with pricing what you weave. There are two types of prices – there is wholesale pricing and there is retail pricing. Wholesale pricing is what you would charge ANOTHER BUSINESS that wants to buy your weaving to sell in their shop.  This lower price is given with the agreement for the business to buy your weaving in quantity. They are not buying one item. They are buying a minimum number of items that YOU set for them to buy at the wholesale price.  That shop will then take the price you sold the item to them for and either double it or triple it. Doubling the price was common in years past but this has increased to tripling the price.  Retail pricing to sell your weaving to the buying public would be higher than the price you sell your work for at wholesale. You are selling one piece. Your retail price might be twice or even three times your wholesale price. BUT many craftspeople set this whole concept aside and the price they set to sell their work to the public themselves is equivalent to the wholesale price plus the addition of the expenses of selling. This becomes a price somewhere in between an actual wholesale price and a retail price.

PRICING

YARN

SO – what do you do in setting your prices?  First, take the cost of your yarn for the weave you want to sell. That cost includes the price you paid for the yarn including any sales tax (or VAT).  (We will talk about paying sales tax in the business section of this article later.) The yarn cost is the base of your price, but just one of many factors to be included.

TIME

Next, figure out how much time it took to make your weave. This first includes warping your loom – start to finish from getting the yarn on the back beam and getting the yarn onto the front beam so that you can start to weave. To the warping time add how much time it took you to do the actual weaving. If you wove it straight through without stopping that is easy. If you wove it over the course of a few days a little at a time – figure out how many hours each of those days you actually wove. (The non-weaving time does not count.)  Weaving time ends once you take the weave off the loom.  Next add to the total time, the time you spent wet finishing - time waiting for the washing and drying to take place does not count, but putting it into the washer/dryer or hand washing and setting up to dry counts.  Next,  did you do anything with the fringe in this process - twist the fringe, finish the ends without fringe, any time you spent on doing this becomes part of the time it took to create the finished weave.  Total all of this time and you have the time it took from start to finished item ready to sell.

IF the weaving only was to create the cloth to make a garment or bag or whatever, that needs sewing, etc., that has to be figured out all on its own and that is going to have  a lot more steps that need to be calculated in for time and materials that go into the garment, etc. plus the additional time to create the finished item.  Right here we are only pricing an item that is ready to sell coming only off your loom.

Next you have to determine what you want per hour for the time it took you to create the woven scarf, etc. This is up to you. Many states in the US and other countries have a minimum wage for an hour of work. This is where determining the price of what to sell your weave for gets tricky – and this is where most will make some compromises. For example – let’s say that the time start to finish is 9 hours (and that can be a lot more in reality – but just for this example – 9 hours) and minimum wage is $15 an hour which might be high but not too unrealistic) the amount of paid labor that went into your weave comes to $135 US – and this is without the cost of your yarn and more to come in determining a price. If you use $l0 an hour it is still $90. Let’s leave this as it is for now and continue to other factors that go into your price.

TALENT AND SKILL

Next comes putting a value to your talent and skills. This is something that is VERY important to many in the craft communities – and with weaving it is always something that needs to be taken into account and added into your price. Never underestimate your skills. This is not a time to be humble or modest. If your work is good enough to sell then there is talent and skill going into your work. And in the weaving community, underselling your work is not going to make you popular with other weavers.  Within this you also need to factor in any special technique you used in your weave. A simple plain weave is different from weaving double heddle twill or a clasped weft design in the weave or a waffle weave. It takes your skill to a higher level in creating those weaves. That needs to be figured into the price of that item. I will have two scarves out for sale – same size, same priced yarn, but one is a plain weave and the other is waffle weave. The waffle weave scarf is priced higher.  If asked why, the answer is that this special technique went into making the waffle weave scarf and I explain basically what that involved. It has always been to the buyer a satisfactory reply to this question. I cannot tell you what to add in for the value of your skills and talent – that is for your to decide – but don’t cheat yourself doing so.

EXPENSES

There are expenses in selling and they are determined by where you are going to be selling this item.  If you are going to sell at a craft show or sale there is going to be a fee to become a seller at the show/sale. That fee should be divided over the prices of the items that you will be selling at that show. This is not easy to do in advance and will vary greatly from show to show. This means you will add this to your prices for each show – or decide a general amount to include in your price.  It is easier if you are selling one item on a selling website such as Etsy which has a set fee to list your item and a percentage fee based on the selling price charged to you by the website when the item sells. Those can go into your selling price right up front. (This sounds more appealing but I will talk more about selling weaving on Etsy and other websites later on for you to decide what is the best venue for sales.)   Another expense of selling is taking credit cards. Already you should be able to see that the final determined selling price of your weave is going to be high. If you want to sell at that price level don’t rely on the customer having that much cash in their pocket. Most expect to be able to take out a credit card and hand it to you – and I will share here the easy and least expensive way to do that.  The fees are added to your selling price.  I will go into the process of taking credit cards later in this article.

 THE PRICE

 Put all of this together and you have your price for your weave.  Take a look at it and decide if it is fair to you. Then look at it as a customer who understands that handwoven is art to wear or art to display (even on a table in a home). Is it fair to the customer? If so, you have your price. Your prices need to be without any need to make any change in coins. Just move it up or down to the nearest whole bill amount.

 As I said, the time factor in the price can be tricky.  There is just so much that something should sell for – and I am sure some weavers who have been selling at top level craft shows will disagree with me about this – they sell at the  type of shows that you apply for months to a year in advance, have to submit professional photos (often slides) for a panel of judges to put in a slide projector or a computer projector if they accept digital photos and flash on  a wall screen for several seconds each and the panel decides if you get in or not and you are charged for this acceptance process without any agreement to accept you into the show and be  accepted or rejected – with no refund of what you have paid them so far and once accepted into the show pay hundreds or MORE to participate in it –in advance. 

 There is a price point that exceeds some types of shows. These shows are generally the local community shows at a church, at a park, at a community center, at the local library. These are shows that with the prices we are likely to come up with including that $135 in your selling price for time reimbursement will result in your not going to make any sales at those shows.  And these are the shows you are going to be able to find and afford to take a chance to do. This is where I make a big compromise in my prices based on dropping the time factor much lower than what it actually is. My prices are not low but I do not overload my prices by including all of the hours that went into my creating that item.  Most of my items are high in price but I will weave some scarves that are not as wide and not as long as others and are plain weave with a lower price point – that I am still satisfied at what I will get in payment for that scarf.  These are still prices well above what the Walmart, Target, and Kohl’s shoppers will expect to pay for a scarf – and there are a lot of those shoppers that show up at shows. I was doing a show and one woman who was buying a scarf – one of the higher priced ones and was not questioning the price at all, said to me – “How long did it take you to weave this?”. I smiled and said, “If I told you, you would know just how good a price you are paying for it.” She smiled and said – “That long!”  She then handed me her credit card.  

 As you can see pricing handwoven is NOT easy. The prices for handwoven are a cut well above what you will find at a local community craft show where your prices will be compared to the local discount stores and customers will tell you so or you will hear them say it as they walk away how they can get the “same” thing at those stores much lower. Yes, they can but those are coming off a machine and not from a craft artist’s hands. 

PICKING A CRAFT SHOW

 In the Spring, summer and Fall there are often a lot of craft shows and sales being advertised either in a local newspaper or by signs where the shows will take place. These can be churches, community centers, local charitable organizations, libraries, parks, museums, and even assisted living centers.  The shows will generally be affordable to do and convenient BUT will they bring in a buyer who will pay the prices you have set on your weaving. Too often, they will not.  I am not saying that you have to look for one of those really expensive top level craft shows but you need to know about the area that a show is taking place in.

 After having done too many craft shows that when  we got to the show to do it, it was filled with vendors selling commercial items – unpacking the cartons of made in X import items and putting them out – in their commercial packaging on their tables and selling at very low prices. And despite this being a craft show, they were selling like crazy.  That combined with buyers coming up to our display and saying – “Oh you made that?” surprised to see anything handmade, and then going to the next booth to buy from the commercial vendors led us to decide that we would not do a show that we did not know and have done before, and if a new show came around we would visit it and determine if we would do it the next year. Of course, if you are eager to get out and sell you likely won’t want to wait, but you are taking your chances as to making sales and competing with the re-sellers with commercial factory manufactured items. And sadly, at this type of show, the show organizers don’t care – as they have their vendor fees and if you don’t come back next year to be in the show, they can fill that space with someone else.  Even shows that we have done where we had to go before the show and let the organizers see what we were going to sell at the show and for them to see that WE actually made it  – started bringing in many commercial vendors with factory made items.

 With weaving, I saw right away that I had to be in a show in an upscale community where there would be affluent buyers who know art to wear and what goes into handwoven, appreciates something unique, and not mass-produced, does not look at price tags because they can afford to buy what they like and not by how low it is priced.  And lately, I am beginning to think that the higher an item is priced at a show located such as this – the more desirable it will be to buy.  When we now pick shows to sell my weaving we go to the shows in those  affluent communities and just as I thought – the buyers at these shows know what they are looking at and will buy – even buy in quantity for themselves and for gifts.  I highly recommend looking for shows like this.

 The other thing in picking a show is once the winter holidays are over wait until the Spring. But in the Spring and summer go to the show with warm weather items. House items or light weight and cool to wear items are what are going to sell in these seasons.  No one wants to buy a nice warm scarf when it is 80 degrees F outside. 

PREPARE FOR A SHOW

There are some expenses to selling that are put into the cost of doing business. You will need to put together a display for your weaving that is going to attract customers to come over and buy from you. You may or may not get a table included in the space you are given to sell in and may have to bring your own. Chairs are generally a bring your on your own.  These are all business expenses that would not generally go into your price. Even your loom can be a business expense. Most, if not all,  of these will be used at every show you do.

 If you do outdoor shows, which are for the majority, in the Spring and Summer you may want to look into buying a popup canopy tent to set up your booth under to stay out of the sun.  If you will be going out to shows in these seasons you will glad you did.  Be sure it is one that can be easily weighted down with filled gallon bottles of water or bricks that you attach to the each leg or on grass or dirt can be securely staked to the ground.  These tents are easily picked up in the wind like a sail on a boat and will send the tent flying high up and then crashing down. Make sure it is secure – and if a strong wind comes along get to one of the tent legs and hold on just in case the weights are not enough.

 THINGS TO BRING AND DO AT A SHOW

 One of the more important things to bring is a friend.   It can be a long day and if you have the need to leave the booth to find a restroom you do not want to leave your booth alone – or ask the booth next to you to watch while you are gone. They have their own booth to watch and even if they agree, will only have half an eye on your booth and your inventory. You don’t want to come back and find some of it gone. Also two people working with customers at the same time means more sales.

 Bring at least a hundred dollars in cash in mixed bills. If your prices are in whole bill amounts you need no coins. Bring this in a cash box that can be locked and can be hidden out of sight. Another reason for a friend to be there with you – both sets of eyes with an easy side glance to see the cash box is still there.

 Bring a lunch from home. Food prices at most craft shows and sales are high  - and you don’t want to have to go looking for lunch and spend half your sales income buying it.

 Wear comfortable shoes and dress for the weather. If it is the winter and you have a coat, bring something to put your coat in – a large trash bag nicely holds coats and keeps them clean placed under your table on the floor or ground.

 I bring the small rigid heddle loom I bought to weave on while selling at shows. I have a Kromski 10” Presto loom with stand just for this. My 32” Kromski Harp Forte takes up too much space in the limited space a show gives you to set up in and it would leave little room for my display which is the most important thing in the space.  The 10” loom is just right. I have a small wood bench that I sit at and it is set up next to our table on one side and the racks with my scarves on the other side. I talk with the public as I weave. I explain what I am doing, I point out on my displays what I did to make certain items. And I explain that I have a larger of a similar loom at home to do the large pieces on display.  This is a BIG attention grabber. After watching me and asking questions they go to the displays and buy.

 Bring a mirror. Even a handheld mirror that you hold up from a few feet away lets your customer see what they look like with your scarf or shawl on.

 The other very important thing to bring is a BIG SMILE. No matter what keep smiling and at some shows that is not easy. Try to ignore some of the dumb things people will say. We have heard some whoppers.

 At the show do not bargain over prices. Your price is fair and the buyer either pays that price or you take the weave home to sell at the next show you do. Don’t be tempted.

 At all times at the show, keep aware of everything that is going on around you.  It is sad to say but there are shoplifters at craft shows just like there are at stores. Be aware of the little kid with the ice cream cone whose mommy is not paying any attention to him and he is about to grab one of the scarves off your display with chocolate ice cream covered hands. And worth saying again – watch your money box! More reasons not to do a show alone.

 Do not leave the show early. Often buyers will walk around a show and wait until the show is almost over to come back and buy that item that they had to “think about” and have decided now to buy it. We were often the last to pack up at the end of the day and made a lot of sales at that time.  But a word of caution – some craft show buyers will come back at the end of a show and offer you less money than your price with the story that you should sell it to them now so that you don’t have to take it home with you. Again – it will sell at a future show – don’t lower your price.

CREDIT CARDS

 There is a company online called “Square” that provides a service for you  to take credit cards in payment. They have very low fees and no commitment that you have to pay them a fee even if you don’t make any sales in a month.  Credit card companies that work with stores and larger than single person businesses charge monthly fees even if you don’t make any sales. Square does not do this. You only pay them if you make a sale that uses a credit card. At this time (and this is always subject to change so I will provide a link to the Square website) the fees are an average of 3% of the selling price plus 10 to 15 cents. Signing up with them is free – they take nothing more from you other than these fees when your item sells with a credit card. 

 When you create your free account with them they will give you a coupon to be able to go to a local store that sells their credit card reader – a swipe model that sells for $10 and with the coupon it is FREE. This is plugged into your cell phone –the free card reader plugs into the earphone jack on your phone and communicates through your phone’s data to Square to process your sale with the Square app you install on your phone.   When you create an account they will ask you for the details of a bank account to which they will deposit the money that you made in credit card sales minus the fees on each sale.  They are very quick in doing this – one to two days. On their website when you go into your account you will have a full report of your sales and what you sold. To make taking credit cards easy while you are out making sales on their website on your account page you can pre-list every item you will have for a sale with the selling price and a place for an identifying item name, a photo of the item and a description if you want to put one on.  When you make a sale you go to the app on your phone, click on the item you are about to sell, swipe the customers credit card and there is a place (if you want them to) for the customer to sign their name with their finger or a stylus you have in a box on the screen. That is it. If the customer wants a receipt emailed to them you ask them for an email address to enter into the sales screen.  

 If you use a more advanced square credit card reader that can take a chip card or a tap and pay card (or phone payment app) the fees on Square are lower. Square sells a credit card reader like this and it sells for about $50 US.  It also includes the swipe reader and I believe that you can use the $10 coupon from Square when you start with them toward this reader to reduce the price. This is a much more secure card reader and it connects to your phone by Bluetooth. It has to be charged before use and it holds its charge for a long time. It is still charged at the end of a craft show having been used through the day.  Make sure your phone is fully charged as well.

 SQUARE WEBSITE -  https://squareup.com/us/en

There are other companies’ websites that do the same thing as Square but we have found Square to be reliable, easy to contact, responsive, and very reasonable in cost.

 SELLING FROM A WEBSITE

 I am not going to talk about the different websites that this can be done on – most are not that good and I am not going to go into details. I will say that it has been my experience that handwoven has to be seen in person. No photo does it justice. Colors change depending on the monitor one is using to look at the photo from a website. Handwoven needs to be able to be touched. The yarn needs to be felt. The person has to be able to try it on.  This will make sales.  Looking at your weaving on a selling website with thousands of other sellers with weaving is a hard sell.

 If you do decide to put your weaving on a website to sell - don’t include anything that has a copyrighted connection and state what that is. It is best to explain with examples.  You make Harry Potter scarves with the “House” named designs or you make scarves with team colors on them and say in the title or description “Giants” scarves for the football team or Syltheren House scarf as examples. These are licensed and copyrighted names and designs. Without the name it is just a stripped scarf in certain colors – and that is OK.  If a shopper sees it they can make their own conclusions of what these stripe colors mean.  If on a website for sale with the name associations – you can be sued for copyright or license infringement or both.

SELLING ON CONSIGNMENT

This is a link to an article I wrote some time ago about selling on consignment. It was a good way to sell craft providing one is aware of the details in this article.

 http://qbranchltd.blogspot.com/2008/03/selling-on-consignment.html

 SELLING AT GALLERIES

Selling at a gallery involves a process set by the gallery to accept your work to be displayed and sold at the gallery. The gallery will have a set percentage which they will take on each sale. Usually you set the price that you want the item to sell at.  Gallery sales are similar to consignment sales and you need to be sure that you and your work are protected.  I have always seen selling at a gallery as an honor. Finding a gallery that will take woven items that are not art wall hangings may not be that easy.

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT GOING INTO BUSINESS

 “I am not in business! I am just a home weaver who wants to sell some of my weaving!”  Well, no – and this depends on what State in the US or country you live in. For most – unless you sell something to your friend, person to person or you have a garage sale (and even those have some restrictions in some places) if you sell you are a business.  And businesses are regulated by local and national governments.  Just about every state or country will have some website detailing the requirements to do business there. The first thing before anything else in this article, GO to that website and start reading.

A State will have a place online on their business website or in person at a local office to register the name you will do business under.  You can just use your own name if you don’t want a unique business name.  They will then assign you other identification data that you will need to have to be in business there. 

Most States in the US – not all – have a state sales tax and in addition sales taxes for local counties.  Some countries have a VAT (Value Added Tax) which is even more complicated.  I will focus on the US for states that have a sales tax. I don’t know enough about the countries with a VAT – for that go to the correct website for your country. In states with a sales tax there will be a website for that Sales Tax Bureau or Department. You will need to apply to collect from buyers and submit to the sales tax department, sales tax in your State.  They will give you a certificate of authority that declares this and it will have a sales tax ID number. There will be a schedule of when you are to submit a report of your sales and the sales tax you collected from your customers. This may be monthly or on another schedule as they direct. You are required to submit on this schedule even if you have made no sales.  This all seems like a pain to go through but if you don’t you are breaking the law – and if found out, you can face serious penalties. You or an accountant can set all of this up for you and the accountant can also do the submissions for you.  The money you collected in sales tax for that period has to be submitted with the report.  Understand, that this money is not coming out of your pocket – you are collecting it from the buyer on behalf of the state when the buyer pays you for the item you sold. You are just the middleman sending that money then to the state.  Some states allow you to include the sales tax in your price. There are some guidelines that must be followed if you do this.  Also when you do business in some states you are required to have a copy or the original certificate from the sales tax department visible at your place of business – aka – your sales table at the craft show. Depending on your location – state or country – there may be specific items that have no sales tax on them or a lower percentage sales tax on them. In some state’s clothing has no sales tax and you would not collect sales tax for a scarf or a shawl, but if you sell a table runner you must collect sales tax for that. This depends on where you live and/or where you are selling. These clothing no tax items still have to be reported as sales when you submit your report to the sales tax agency – but there will be no tax money to submit for those. This is another thing you must find out from your state or country.

Some craft shows want to see your certificate before you are accepted to the show. Some don’t.  In some states, Sales Tax Agents have been know to visit craft shows - even some obscure local craft shows and even on a Sunday,  and look for certificates and proof that you are collecting sales tax.  We have been at shows like that. At one show they were just giving warnings. At another show in the next state that were just visiting the show and not selling at, we watched these agents confiscating inventory and closing the vendors down who were out of compliance.  An accountant shared with me that the state sales tax agencies can be more ruthless than the IRS.

If you sell on a site like Etsy they have you put the sales tax percentage that must be collected for your state on your shop’s account and when a sale is made to someone by you in your State they add on the sales tax and collect it for you to receive with your sale payment for you to submit. Currently there are states that want sales tax collected if you make an internet sale to someone in that state even if you are NOT in that state. This gets very complicated and Etsy will do all that work for you and submit to those states for you - otherwise you would have to be registered to collect sales tax in each of those states and that is not something you want to do.

On Square you can put into your account the percentage of sales tax you have to collect and they add it to your sale when someone buys something. This will be paid on the buyer’s credit card along with the item’s price.

Is there any upside to having to collect sales taxes on your sales? In some states if registered with state Sales Tax –not all – you are entitled to not pay sales tax on materials that will go into what you are selling. So if you buy yarn, you don’t pay sales taxes on the yarn – as it will be collected as part of the sales tax you charge when you make the sale to a buyer.  Most stores have some process in place for you to not to pay sales tax with proof you are a business registered with State Sales Tax. There is usually a form that you fill out with the information from your certificate and give it to the store. With some stores you only have to do this once a year.  Michael’s Crafts has it on their app and you set this up with them on their website. When you buy yarn in Michael's, you show the app to the cashier who scans a code on the phone screen and the sales tax is removed from what you pay for the yarn. Walmart does this in the store and gives you a card to present to the cashier when you buy something you are entitled to not pay tax on. Joann’s has a process in which it goes into their computer and comes up on the cash register when you buy yarn or whatever for your project that will be sold.

Of course, any sales your business makes is income and you have to include it in your income tax returns – Federal and State on the appropriate business return forms.  You can do this yourself but it is VERY WISE TO HIRE AN ACCOUNTANT to do this for you and keep you out of trouble. 

I am not a lawyer or an accountant. My wife is an accountant which is how I am so well aware of the information regarding taxes which I have shared.

SO after all of this do you still want to sell your weaving? While it is not as easy as you thought it would be - it is worth it.  I love the feeling of someone not only admiring my work but also paying money to buy it.  Anything worth doing is always going do have its complications but if you can make some money in the process it is worth it.

THINGS TO KNOW WHEN DIRECT WARPING

 There are some things that should be more clearly stated about direct warping that go beyond the back process and often are left out all together.  One of the first things to understand is that when direct warping - whether you are using a single vertical peg, or a horizontal rod as I have described in the article on this site, "Another Way to Direct Warp", multiple pegs, or hybrid warping using a warping board to direct warp - is that all you are doing when you bring the yarn from the loom to the warping peg (etc.) is measuring the yarn to weave the length you want your weave to be on the loom.  That length of warp on the loom is not the length of warp you want your final off the loom length to be. It is longer to account for shrinkage, waste, fringe, tie on, etc. This length is calculated as part of your project calculations with a weaving calculator.  To get that length that the calculator gives you for your warp you need to measure the distance from the warping peg to the position of the apron rod in the back of your loom at which you will warp to.  With a single peg - measure from the center of your loom - to the peg. 

When you warp to a single peg your warp is creating a V shape with the point of the V at the peg and the top of the V at each end of the warp on your heddle. Geometry tells us that the distance from the point of the V to the center point between the two legs of the V at the top of the V is shorter than the the length of each arm of the V. (This can be confusing at first - so take a moment to read that last sentence again and let it sink in.) What does this mean? It means that the warp at the center of the loom is shorter than the warp at the ends - and this distance right and left of the center of your heddle gets longer. You want all of the warp yarn to be AT LEAST the length of the  center of the heddle to the peg. This means you will have longer warp on the sides - but that is necessary when warping with a single peg - or your warp will be too short for your project.  Are you wasting some yarn? Yes. Is there a way around that? Not if you warp to a single peg. With a horizontal rod to warp to you should have equal lengths of warp from heddle to rod. With a warping board for hybrid warp, you will still have the V. With multiple pegs, you will have less of a V though you will create multiple Vs warping to multiple pegs and yarn length will still vary but not as much.. 

 When new weavers direct warp - and some experienced weavers as well who have not figured out this next thing - they often find the warp peg come flying off the table it is attached to and the peg and the yarn come at them at the loom resulting in warp tangled on the floor. Sometimes the warp can be salvaged and sometimes it can't. This happens to many - it happened to me on my second project ever and it happened twice during that warp. The first time I could salvage the yarn. The second time I could not.  Why does this happen? There is too much tension on the warp between the loom and the peg. 

There is no need to have tension on the warp when you are warping to the peg! As we just established above you are measuring the yarn when you warp to the peg. If there is tension on the warp, the warp acts like a spring - if you pull a spring too much it wants to spring back! The peg will only take so much before the warp wants to pull it in the direction from which it is being pulled - and it is going to go flying.  To prevent this there are two things you can do - one is to clamp the peg on the far side of the table and never the side closest to the loom. Closest to the loom if the peg is pulled it has nowhere to go but at you. On the other side of the table when it is pulled it will first pull itself into the edge of the table it is clamped to. But sometimes even that will not stop it and it still comes flying off with the warp. Or the pulling causes the warp to travel up the peg and come off the top.

One other thing that happens when there is too much tension on the warp from the loom to the peg is that you are stretching the yarn. Again, think of the yarn as a spring. As it is pulled it gets longer - much longer than the spring is when it is not being stretched from pulling. And since you are measuring the yarn to the peg, what is happening with the yarn under tension is that when you take the warp off the peg to wind it on the back beam as soon as it is off the top of the peg, the warp yarn RELAXES! And it gets SHORTER! Oops! What you thought was 90" long was stretched to 90" long and it really is 85 inches long or shorter! Your warp is too short for the length of the project you intended to weave, and you won't know it until you get near the end of your warp on the loom while weaving and you are no where near the length you thought you would have.

There is no reason for the tension. It is OK for your warp to sag from the loom to the peg AS LONG AS it sags consistently from one end of the heddle to the other.  This is not a problem. It may be a little longer than you need BUT LONGER IS BETTER THAN SHORTER when it comes to warp! 

But the books say to wind the warp onto the back beam under tension! Yes, it does but you have not been winding on yet - you are just measuring your yarn from the loom to the peg while you warp. When you have warped all of the slots and take the warp off the peg to wind it onto the back beam THAT IS WHEN YOU PUT THE WARP UNDER TENSION. 

When you are more experienced these things start to click and make sense. It really is simple but you don't usually see this in a book or even in the videos showing direct warp to a rigid heddle loom. 

What else can go wrong?  Lets go back a little - before you have warped the loom but are about to start. Look at your loom. The heddle is generally located not at the center of the loom but more toward the back of the loom frame. The space from the heddle to the back of the loom is shorter than the heddle to the front of the loom. SHORT END IS THE BACK OF THE LOOM. LONG END IS THE FRONT OF THE LOOM. THE BACK OF THE LOOM IS THE WARP END. THE FRONT OF THE LOOM IS THE WEAVING AND FINISHED CLOTH END. Before you warp make sure your loom is facing the correct way. AND when direct warping you put the FRONT of the loom toward the warp peg. You bring the warp from the ball of yarn around the back APRON ROD (the apron rod is the dowel or flat "stick" that you attach the warp to) through the slot in the heddle and over to the direct peg - put ir over the peg and come back to do this again for the width of your warp in the heddle.  So now you know what is the back of the loom and what is the front of the loom. You do not want to weave from the back of the loom - the space between the heddle and the beam is just too short.  Weaving is done on the front of the loom - the long part of the loom.  

ALWAYS WARP SO THAT THE YARN IS CENTERED ON THE HEDDLE. (When you get a new heddle the first thing you should do is take a marking pen and make a mark on the heddle frame at the center of the heddle - either that will correspond to a slot or a hole.)  Do not warp with the yarn on one side of the heddle and the rest of the heddle is empty. As you weave you are weaving with the warp under strong tension between the beams. If you are not centered you are pulling he beams on the side the warp is on and the empty side is going to try to flex - which can break the beam. When planning out where your warp will go on the heddle - with the heddle off the loom and in front of you on a table, start at the middle slot and count out to the right and then to the left to find the starting warp slot and the ending warp slot with the center slot in the middle. This means when you count to one side, count the center slot BUT when you count then to the other side do not count the center slot it is already counted - start in that direction with the slot next to the center slot. A simple tip is to take a piece of yarn and tie it around the top of the frame of the loom through the starting slot and another through the ending slot. On the loom when warping start at one marked slot and stop at the other marked slot. If you often use the same widths to weave on that heddle - keep the marking yarns tied on  - use a different color pair of yarns for different weaving widths and make a note of which is which width. (Sounds like it is part of a song in the Wizard of Oz! 😀 )  And before I start singing - we will move on. 😉

Also before you start weaving, you may notice that the heddle (on some looms) is different on one side from the other side. On some rigid heddle looms the heddle is bumped out on one side. On other rigid heddle looms the heddle is flat on both sides. So which is the front of the heddle and which is the back?  With a heddle that is flat on both sides it does not matter. But guess what? On a heddle with the bump out on one side and flat on the other it also does not matter.  Kromski looms and Ashford looms have heddles made with the bump out on one side of the plastic of the heddle - it is in the area of the hole. One thing that this does is strengthen the plastic around the hole. Yarn passing through the hole constantly is not going to wear through that thicker plastic that forms the bump. But is there a front and back and a right side and a wrong side to use to beat with? Not really. Some will say the name of the company that made the heddle is on the front of the heddle. Hmm? Kromski puts the name on the heddle on the same side as the bump out. Ashford puts the name of the heddle on the flat side of the heddle. Which one is right? It is really a matter of personal preference. My own preference is to beat with the heddle with the bump out. I find that it pushes the weft row more directly than the flat side BUT am I right? Some like using the flat side.  Are they wrong? Some looms only have a heddle that is flat on both sides. Is that a problem? NO! There are as many using the bumped out side to beat with as there are those using the flat side when their heddles have two different sides. (An interesting side note - Kromski's 10 dent heddle is flat on both sides. When I asked them about this they had no answer as to why the 10 dent is flat and the 5, 8, and 12 dent heddles are bumped out on one side.) So decide for yourself if you have a bumped out heddle on one side. Try a project one way and another project the other way - and see which you prefer or conclude that there is no preference. 

OK - here is something that comes up in discussions often. You will see in books and in videos on direct warping that it is said that when you put the yarn around the apron rod to put it in the slot you MUST alternate the yarn going over and under the apron rod - first over, then under. When I first started weaving I was making myself crazy making sure that I got this right - checking with each warp slot that I passed the loop of yarn through. GUESS WHAT? The yarn goes this way whether you think about it or not. It can only go this way - over and under alternating - it does it itself. If it is not, you did something wrong in bringing the yarn from the ball to go around the apron rod and through the slot. It really cannot go any other way if you are warping correctly. 

 When you wind the warp onto the back beam, you are winding the apron rod on with the warp tied on  to it and with the warp UNDER TENSION (how you put the tension on is another article in itself), you must put a warp separator under every layer of warp that you wind on. Warp separator can be as simple as sheets of brown package wrapping paper. A warp separator must be thick and it must not compress so that the one layer of warp sinks into the war layer below. Thin paper - even thin cloth  is not a good warp separator as it will push in with each warp under tension and push into the row below and maybe even rip the paper. The purpose of the separator is to keep each layer of warp apart and not mixing into the layer below.  Some use flat strips of wood put in between the warp as it is wound on. Some use the rubber no slip shelf liner - the one with the bumps on the surface of rubber. Many use the package wrapping paper which is sold in office stores or even Walmart in the stationary aisle. That paper lasts for a long time and many weaves.

There is such a thing as double warp. I am not going to go into how that is done but know that it is two warp threads in each slot and each hole. The yarn that this is done with MUST be thin enough to fit doubled in a slot and in a hole. Don't force it in - it will just rub and break as you are weaving. A beginning weaver should not be doing double warp until they have a lot of experience with single regular warp.

What can go wrong while warping? 

 If you find that there is not enough warp yarn on the ball after you have been warping and then passing  the loop through the slot in the heddle does not make it to the peg, stop and bring that loop back to the loom. Pass it back through to the back of the heddle and tie it onto the apron rod. Get another ball of warp yarn and tie the end on the apron rod and keep warping, Make sure you are starting in the now empty slot that you found the warp was too short to make it to the peg. It is always good to have another ball of yarn on hand - for warp and for weft.

Before you take your warp off the warping peg, go across every slot and make sure you have not missed any slots that needed a warp loop going to the peg. It is far easier now to fix this than later.

When tying on the warp to the warp apron rod - at the start of your warp or at the end - or in between - make sure your knots are strong and cannot come loose. A loose knot here will cause problems when you get toward the end of the weave. Double - even triple knots are good! 

When you have tied your warp to the front beam, every bundle of warp that is tied on must be equal in tension to all of the others. Go along the bundles and the warp behind the heddle with two fingers and tap gently. Every bundle must feel the same tension. If not you will have problems when you weave. It can take multiple adjustments back and forth across the warp bundles to get them even. Time spent here with this will save problems later.

 

Once you have finished warping go and read my article on weaving a header. That is the next thing you have to do before you start weaving with your project yarn! 

 

Another way to Direct Warp

Direct warping is a method of measuring the yarn for your warp at the same time that you are putting it on the loom. The usual method of direct warping - and there are many free videos on YouTube to show how to do this - is to clamp an vertical peg to a table (some use the top of a chair back) that is the distance from the apron dowel of your loom that the warp is to be long, and warp from the back of the loom tying your first warp thread to the apron dowel and then passing a loop of that warp through the first slot you have calculated to start your warp in to go across the loom the number of slots and holes also calculated. The heddle hook or slay hook is used to pick up the loop from the opposite side of the heddle, through the slot toward you and then catching the loop and pulling from back to front through that slot. This puts TWO warp threads (it is a loop that is going through) now on the cloth side of the heddle. You get up, take that loop in your fingers and walk it across the room to the warping peg and place the loop over and down on the vertical peg. You carry the yarn now back with you to the loom and then continue with the warp thread (placed under the loom on the warp side) and keep passing loops through. This is a simplified explanation of the process.

Now, what can go wrong? Well, if you put too much tension on that warp loop as you carry it down to the peg, you transfer that tension to the warp on the peg when you put it on - and you may just find that the peg comes flying off the table - and all the warp becomes a tangled mess on the floor - sometimes impossible to get straightened out - and usually just as you were about to finish the warp. That is one thing that can go wrong. Another problem is that if the peg is not tall enough, you can run out of peg before you are finished and you will find yourself pushing it all down as best you can to make more room. And still another problem is that with the warp going across the loom to a single point - the peg - you create a V from peg to loom with the closed end of the V at the peg. The distance from each side of the loom to the middle will be at different lengths.

So what can you do about this. I was a wonderful idea shared on one of the Weaving Facebook groups by a very smart lady, Ingrid Koch. She came up with a horizontal warping rod instead of a warping peg. As I recall, she used a curtain rod. I looked at her idea and decided to come up with something a little stronger and a way to secure it to a table.

I decided to use a thick wood dowel - about 3/4" in diameter and three feet wide. My loom is 32" wide so the 36" long dowel was more than enough for a full warp across the loom. Here is a photo of what I came up with -

What you see here are two stand brackets to hold the rod. The table they are on is a garden folding table from IKEA and I bought this table for this purpose - and to use for other weaving related tasks. With this table the brackets are held down to the surface of the table with a screw bolt passed up through the slot of the table through the bracket and tightened on with a wing nut - there is a washer both above and below the bracket. One bracket is cut shorter than the other, but the bottom of the slot that holds the dowel start at the same height from the table.

 
The rod is level across sitting in the brackets. One side is short because this is the side of the rod that will be lifted to slide the warp loop onto. The other bracket is taller so that the dowel does not slip off as the other end is lifted up.  In this photo you will see a permanent mark in the exact middle of the dowel. You know when you are half way across your heddle your warp should be right there at that mark on the dowel. There are two pieces of removable painters tape that mark the point the first loop should be placed next to - since I warp right to left - that would be the edge of the tape on the right and the spot the last loop is placed - that is the tape on the left. What you see on the right end (outside the bracket on the dowel) is a bubble level. I will explain why that is there later.

So now instead of walking to a vertical peg, with this you walk to the left end of the dowel, lift that end enough to get the warp loop over, and drop the warp loop down at the dowel starting at the edge of the right piece of tape. Let's say I am warping a warp that is to be 104" each warp thread. That warp loop is now 104 inches away from the apron dowel going through the first slot I am warping. The next loop goes right next to that - again 104" long. This goes on for the full width of the warp. When you are done you will have a very straight warp from the warping dowel through the slots in the heddle to and across the apron dowel. This will be the same when the warp is wound onto the warp beam under tension. Every warp thread the same length. All nice and neatly lined up across the beam. If the warp is 12 inches across the apron dowel, it will be 12 inches across the warping rod.

With this, it is hard for the warp to fly off. The brackets are securely attached - you could put these on any table edge using two soft faced wood clamps found at any home or tool store. You have a length of dowel to hold your warp as long as the number of slots you are warping through. You don't have to put a lot of tension on the warp - just enough to keep it from sagging.

Let me step aside a moment to say this - when you are direct warping, your main goal is to measure the warp length and not to put tension on the warp. The tension will be put on by your helper when you wind on the warp on the warp beam.

When you or your partner are taking the rod off the brackets when you are ready to wind the warp onto the back beam, lift it straight up off the brackets just high enough to clear them. You now need to get this to the front of the table. This is easy with this particular table that I picked as it is a gate leg table and what my wife does (who is my warping helper) is move the gate leg closed with her foot from the back of the table and the top comes down. With a table that you cannot do this with, move the rod forward to the front of the table(the tension will be lost but don't worry as the length will not change). Get around to the front and have your helper get hold of the rod  and you move the table so that there is room to get tension back on the warp on the rod. If you remove the warp from the rod at the table, you can warp as you usually would do by tying a string or yarn around all of the warp, and then weight that and warp alone. If you have a helper and you leave the warp on the rod held level and straight as you wind on you will get a nice even warp each thread lying next to each other on your back beam. An alternative is to weight down the table. Leave the warp on the rod and the rod in the brackets, start winding on and let the loom be pulled toward the table and the rod as you wind. Get up and walk behind the loom as you do this.

I mention here about hold the rod level. I find that this makes a difference in getting a good wind when using a rod like this. That mystery item on the right end of the rod in the first photo is a little bubble level. You can find these for a few dollars in Walmart in the Auto section where they have a section of RV supplies. It is a package of two and these little levels have peel and stick adhesive on the bottom. Stick it on the end of the rod and then whoever is holding the rod while you are winding on will see the bubble and if it is not in the middle the rod (dowel) is not level. Move that end up or down a little and the bubble goes to the middle. I added this when my wife said that it looked level as she was holding the dowel in her two hands but was not sure. I could see from across the room that it was way off. She can now see the level and adjust the dowel as needed.

If you leave the warp on the dowel until it gets to the front of the loom, you will have a nice even wind on the beam - every warp thread lined up on the beam just as it will come off the beam while weaving. Thread your holes following the order and you will have no crossed warp threads coming off the warp beam!

This works. I was not happy with the direct warp vertical peg. This solved all of the problems I was having with it!

ADDENDUM:

I have been asked about the size of the table. Here are the dimensions of the table - 28.5" high, 24.5" wide, with one gate leg up - 29.75" long, and with the two gate legs up - 51.75" long.  The table is heavy and I purposely looked for a heavy table so that the table would not move when warping.  The slats in the top make it easy to anchor the brackets. This table from IKEA is an outdoor table - available during the Spring and summer months.This link will bring you to the IKEA page for this table (as long as IKEA still offers this table) -   https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/aepplaroe-gateleg-table-outdoor-brown-stained-brown-50208535/

STARTING A NEW PROJECT

When I am planning a new project to put on the loom, after I have decided what the project will be, I need to know how much yarn I need to have for the project. There are mathematical calculations to do that will make a close estimate to how much yarn the project will need for both warp and weft.  There are a lot of calculators out on the internet and in the calculations can be found in weaving books. Many weaving books will have a project planning sheet that will let you write in the numbers needed and will lead you through the calculations to do to get how much warp and how much weft the project will use.

These are all nice. I have tried several. I have a good background in math but sometimes the worksheets or written out calculations in books can be confusing. I like things nice and simple so I have taken the best of what I have seen and put together a computer Excel spreadsheet that does it all - and made this simpler than many I have seen and also uses calculations based on the weft yarn to be used that will more accurately give how much weft yarn is needed rather than a simple percentage of the warp yarn needed that is always a lower amount than warp - which I have sometimes found not always to be even close - and generally not enough weft, which means you can find yourself short. I will share that spreadsheet file with you in this article, but first you need to understand some of the numbers that it is going to ask you to enter.

First, you need to decide how long and how wide your finished project will be. This is simple enough and it is a decision that you need to make for any weaving project you want to weave. This is easiest done in inches and the spreadsheet will ask for this in inches.

ALL YELLOW cells are INPUT points - this is where you put in your numbers. ALL GREEN cells are ANSWERS! Ignore the white cells - they are there to see what is being used for calculations.

The next thing you need to decide on is what weight yarn you will be using. In knitting yarn there will be a number found on the yarn label such as #4 - which is worsted weight yarn or #3 - which is known as baby weight, sport weight, or DK weight (all the same), and others (from #1 to #7) The weight of the yarn will decide the heddle that you will use. Generally a #4 weight yarn uses an 8 or 7.5 dent heddle. You can use a thinner yarn in a heddle than the usual thickness it is made for, but you can't use a thicker yarn as it will rub and wear in the slots and holes as it passes through - if it fits through at all. A smaller thickness yarn is fine. The resulting weave will just be looser and that results in more drape in the final weaving - which can be a good thing. I am not going to go into all of the details as all of this is basic to learning how to weave. My intent here is to help and not to teach from scratch. In the spreadsheet the weight of the yarn is going to go into the epi and the ppi entries.

EPI - ends per inch and relates to WARP
PPI - picks per incn and relates to WEFT (A pick is a single passing of the shuttle from one side to the other.)

If you don't know the EPI, you can measure it easily. Take any straight ruler. Wrap the yarn evenly starting at an inch mark and wrap not too tight and not too lose to the next inch mark. Count the number of wraps and DIVIDE by TWO (2). The result is EPI.

NOW - I am going to share what I do. I decide what heddle I am going to use - let's say the 8 dent heddle that came with my Kromski loom and I know that the dent of this heddle means that it is 8 ends of yarn in one inch. Even if I am going to use a thinner WARP than the usual #4 which should come out close to 8 EPI (not always but close), the EPI I put in the spreadsheet will be 8. If I am using the same yarn for the weft, then the PPI that I put into the spreadsheet will also be 8. If you have a 7.5 dent heddle this would be 7.5 for your heddle. If I am using a thicker or thinner WEFT - I will measure this yarn on the ruler and use that number instead - why? Because this will effect the amount of weft yarn that will be needed.

When you enter the EPI you are going to get a calculated number of WARP ENDS which may be a number with a fraction. Since you can warp a fraction of a yarn, the calculator will automatically NEXT give you a whole number of warp ends - which will be HOW MANY SLOTS AND HOLES you will warp. NOW YOU KNOW HOW MANY SLOTS AND HOLES YOU WILL WARP.

Next you are going to put in the length you plan to weave - the finished length of the project. The spreadsheet is now going to calculate how much warp you need to buy. Remember all of these numbers are inches!

The spreadsheet uses a general 10% calculation for shrinkage and pull in. This is how much extra that the spreadsheet is calculating in for this. IF YOU NEED OR WANT A LARGER OR SMALLER PERCENTAGE FOR SHRINKAGE AND PULL IN, CHANGE THE % NUMBER TO WHAT YOU WANT. ALWAYS INCLUDE THE % SIGN WITH YOUR NUMBER.

YOU NOW KNOW HOW LONG EACH WARP YARN THREAD NEEDS TO BE. If you are direct warping, this is how MANY INCHES YOU NEED FOR THE REAR BEAM OF YOUR LOOM TO BE AWAY FROM YOUR WARPING PEG. (WHOLE INCHES WARP LENGTH)

At this point you get the AMOUNT OF WARP THAT YOU WILL NEED IN BOTH INCHES AND YARDS. As most yarns are labeled in YARDS, you now know how much WARP to buy.

NEXT the spreadsheet works on WEFT.


The length of your weaving has already been entered based on the above calculations and taking shrinkage into account. All you need to enter is the PPI. The amount of WEFT needed will then be calculated for you.

Understand that it is better to have more yarn than less. I always buy an extra skein of yarn more than the calculations tell me to buy. I buy in local retail stores that have no problem taking returns on yarn. If I can't return the yarn I have added to me stash for future use. Many yarns are in dye lots. This means that the yarn color when dyed may vary from one dye batch to another and those in the SAME DYE LOT will be the SAME. The yarn label will tell you the Dye Lot number or Code. Always buy the same Dye Lot number on the same color yarn that you buy for a project.

OK - Here is the link to the spreadsheet. When you go to the site the file is on, you will be able to download it to your computer. Please click on the DOWNLOAD Button on the top of the menu to the right. DO NOT USE THIS FILE ON THE SITE - EVEN THOUGH THIS IS POSSIBLE. NEVER SAVE OVER THIS FILE ON THE SITE YOU FIND IT ON. THIS SPREADSHEET IS FOR YOUR USE ONLY - DO NOT SHARE IT WITH ANYONE. IF someone wants it, send them to this article and they can download it themselves.

IF YOU DO NOT HAVE EXCEL, YOU CAN DOWNLOAD A FREE VERSION OF AN EXCEL OFFICE SUITE FROM LIBREOFFICE. 

Another TIP - Put the spreadsheet file on your cell phone. There are a number of free excel compatible Android or Iphone office suite apps that will open the file and let you do calculations right in the yarn store!


THE LINK - EMAIL US WITH YOUR REQUEST

RH WEAVING CALCULATOR

First Project as a Learning Project

 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.

Some Resources to Get You Started Weaving

I taught myself how to weave. I used two books and a number of videos that I watched several times to get myself acquainted enough to sit down at the loom and start weaving. There was also a good download file from Kromski that applies to all looms that helped to get me started. I also joined several groups on Facebook to have places to ask questions and get quick answers by those more experienced than I.

BOOKS

When I bought the loom I also ordered a book that came well recommended on how to weave on a rigid heddle loom. This book turned out to be a disappointment when I received it and at first I was getting a bit frustrated and knew that I needed something with clearer photos and more detail in explanation. When I put that out on one of the Facebook a different book was recommended and it has been my go to book since I started weaving a year ago. This book is Inventive Weaving On a Little Loom by Syne Mitchell. It has large color photos and good instructions on what to do at each step of the way. As the book goes along it introduces more advanced techniques that make this book valuable beyond just a beginner's book. I highly recommend this book. I wish that I had learned of this book from the start.

I have four books on Rigid Heddle weaving - here they are:

Inventive Weaving on a Little Loom - Syne Mitchell - Storey Press

Hands On Rigid Heddle Weaving - Betty Lynn Davenport -  Interweave Press
 (Not a bad book but needs more photos than line drawings and more detail - I do refer to this book for somethings.)

Weaving Made Easy - Liz Gipson - Interweave Press
 (Covers a few things the other books don't. Focus is on projects with plans.)

Simple Woven Projects - Sarah Goldenberg & Jane Patrick - Interweave Press
  (Clothing patterns and projects made on a rigid heddle loom)

All of these books have projects of items to weave.

VIDEOS

ASSEMBLY OF THE KROMSKI HARP FORTE - 

Assembly of the Kromski Harp Forte

The Kromski Series - 

These apply to any rigid heddle loom.

Kromski Harp, Understanding the Rigid Heddle Loom, Part 1

Kromski Harp, Understanding the Rigid Heddle Loom, Part 2

Kromski Harp, Understanding the Rigid Heddle Loom, Part 3

Kromski Harp - Part 1 - Using the Warping Board

Kromski Harp - Part 2 - Using the Warping Peg

Kromski Harp - Part 3 - Dressing the Loom

Kromski Harp - Part 4 - Weaving

Warping the Harp - Using Warping Sticks


From Ashford
 
These apply to any rigid heddle loom.

Simple Warping for a Rigid Heddle Loom

Spreading the Warp on a Rigid Heddle Loom 

Tying on a Warp on a Rigid Heddle Loom 

Weaving on the SampleIt Loom

 
 PDF FILE

This applies to any loom. 

Starting a Project on a Kromski Loom

   This file starts by saying it is assembly but a few pages in it starts a project. 

RIGID HEDDLE FACEBOOK GROUPS

Rigid Heddle Loom Weaving

Rigid Heddle Adventure 

Rigid Heddle Loom Endeavor 

Rigid Heddle Looms 

Weaving    (general weaving group with rigid heddle weavers also on it)

If you are not a member of Facebook you cannot join these groups but these are worthwhile resources to make being on Facebook worthwhile - even if you don't do anything else on Facebook. There are other forums that have sub-groups for rigid heddle weaving but these are not as responsive as the groups on Facebook. Two of these are:

Weavolution

Ravelry




As we go along with these articles there will be more resources shared.