Attention to Detail

The really lovely thing about weaving is turning something into Something Beautiful. Here we have some very well-wound rags prepped for weaving a rag rug. They started out as sheets from the Salvation Army, and after some tearing into strips, sewing back together, and then winding up, they are Something Beautiful.

Next up, they are becoming a rag rug. Also very nice:

The prep and weaving is not my work, but the efforts of my daughter and her boyfriend, who decided to learn to weave on a floor loom by making rag rugs for their new apartments. That's another lovely thing about weaving: watching others learn to use what is such an ancient technology. (And I freely acknowledge that they, in just a few weeks, have much more attention to detail than do I:  their balls of rag strips look much better than mine, with definite attention to symmetry and winding tightly. And my daughter is sewing the ends of the rags together when she starts a new color, whereas I just overlap the ends and move on.) They've been industriously winding the warp, putting it onto the loom, and threading for the last week, and now are starting to weave. 

In the meantime, I found a loom on Craig's List. I've been scoping for a second loom for a few months, so that I can work on my Handweavers Guild of America Certificate of Excellence samples AND have something to weave that I actually enjoy. (Again, attention to detail: the COE is all about precision and records and precision, or did I already mention that? Today I couldn't even find the records of the samples I've done, or the warp that I pre-wound. Organization is called for.) On Friday I found an ad for a simple floor loom at a good price. Sunday we drove to Wisconsin, checked it out, and came home with a Nilus Leclerc Artisat wedged into the back of the car. Luckily, we'd left the very large dog at home, or he would have been sitting on my husband's lap for the return trip. Here's the new loom:

It's described as a good, solid, hobby loom, but folks on Ravelry said that they've been happily weaving on theirs for many years, and with an occasional re-tightening of the nuts and bolts, you can even weave a rug on it. The treadles (the pedals that you step on to raise the harnesses) are much skinnier and closer together than on my Schacht - no weaving with my Keens on -  but if I weave barefoot, it should be fine.

Huzzah! Next up, trying to get something woven by Monday for my weaving guild study group...