A Week-End Warp Weighted Loom Project

The plaid yardage is not the first project on this loom. She made her debut at the Griffin Dyeworks Fiber Retreat in 2008, with a group project to weave a shawl in a weekend. We had from noon on Friday until noon on Sunday to weave the header band, tie the heddles, weave and finish off the shawl. For every 15 minutes a participant worked on the project, she or he got a raffle ticket. At the end of the retreat we raffled off the shawl.

Many hands made it possible to finish – although we did have to weave into the night on Saturday to stay on track. Many of the participants had no previous weaving experience, and it was exciting to watch them experience the magic of weaving cloth for the first time.

Here’s a picture of Mel weaving the header band using an inkle loom and warping board, clamped side by side to a table:

And here’s tyeing the heddles:

With a step stool, this became a multigenerational project:

Bridget wields the sword beater:

The warp was black wool from Halcyon Yarn. The weft was space dyed with many flavors of Kool-Aid

for a result that could only be called “tooty fruity”! The multi-color yarn could have been alarming, but the black warp toned it down and made a truly dramatic shawl. Here’s a close up:


And here’s Ercil modeling the finished shawl: