Look ma, I'm weaving!

Since I had a holiday from work, I took advantage of it and spent the day weaving my first project - a sampler. I was surprised at how fast it went! I had a 10' warp on the loom (see pics below), and started weaving about 9am. With breaks for lunch, occasional resting, and to cook dinner, I finished the weaving about 5pm. It took me several more hours to tie off all the fringe, weave in ends, and clean up my work area. I did the sample project in Deborah Chandler's book Learning to Weave. This is a great reference for anyone just starting out. I was able to figure out everything I needed, plus it has a lot of options that I'll try out in the future. I took lots of pics as I went and have added them to my photo album instead of taking up space here. But I do want to share one of the finished products. I had enough warp to do generous samples of the patterns, and some left over to make a placemat. After washing, I did learn that this yarn needs to have hemmed edges in the future. The fringe disintegrates in the washer. There was one mistake that the book said would probably correct itself with washing, but it didn't. I had threaded the reed with 2 threads/dent, but missed one. I didn't want to take everything apart and move everything over, so I just moved one thread making 2 dents with 1 thread each. It shows up as a loose space throughout the sampler. Oddly enough, it did fix itself on the 2x2 twill section. Probably because of the looseness of the pattern. Oh well, now I know to go ahead, bite the bullet, and fix any threading errors before starting. Here's a pic of the final product.


Placemat and Sampler


My 1st Placemat


Sample of rib weave for placemat