Not dead yet

Hey look, I made something! Well, several somethings, only I haven’t posted about them either. Oops.

Anyway, here, look, I made a bag to hang from my loom and keep tools in!

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Oh, didn’t I tell you? I got a loom! I had one before, but I’d gotten it for free and it turned out to be too badly cracked. I bought a loom from someone I know from online, and swapped the pieces of the other one (as spare parts) to her for some nice heddles to use with it. (The heddles are the things you run warp threads through; when the heddles go up and down, so do the warp threads, making it easier to weave.)

Here’s my new-to-me loom in an earlier stage of being fixed up.

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I’ve done some work on her since I took that picture: wiping everything down with diluted Murphy’s oil soap, rubbing in some Wood Beams, getting the rust off with wire brush and naval jelly, moving the treadles around to the back where they started out, and replacing the rusty and pitted lower warp beam. I have a little rod stock on order to replace a rod in one of the harnesses. Finding metric rod stock in small quantities in the US is hard to do. I wish I could say I was surprised. After that, the only thing I need is tie up cord. I’m waiting until I can afford the fancy TexSolv tie up cord, because I gather it’s worth its cost.

And then I can start warping the loom (putting the warp threads on) and get to weaving.

She’s a Lillstina 46″ floor loom (means I can theoretically weave 46″ wide fabric on her)—a counterbalance—and her name is Diamond Lil.

Other bits I already have that I’m going to need: a tall chair that I hope is the right height, a warping board, shuttles and bobbins, and lease sticks.