I decided to warp up the table loom in order to weave the first denim rag rug a few nights ago. First there was a bit of measuring up and calculation to do. The rug was supposed to go in the tv room, but we’ve recently rearranged the furniture and now a big square rug would suit better than a long rectangle. The loom is only about 80cm wide. I considered doing three strips and sewing them together, but it turned out I don’t have enough warp for that.

The lounge room could do with a rug between the couches, so I measured up that space and found the 80cm width would work well. So I did the calculations for a 2 meter long rug.

The measuring and cutting of yarn happened on New Years Day, with a lingering hangover and lack of sleep. Not a day for trying out new warping methods. But there’s one step in the Ashford instructions that I hate. You have to pull loops of the warp through the reed and hook them over a lease stick. The loop pulling requires two hands. The lease stick requires one hand. Guess what? I don’t have three hands. So I’ve been tying and taping the lease stick into place. But the other problem I have with this method is that the lease stick doesn’t quite fit between the loom and the side wall. (You can see it touching the window in the pic above.)

I came up with a solution:

There’s a weaving tool called a raddle. I have no idea what it is. But one side of my warping board/space dyeing tool/doovy looks rather like one if you put all the pegs in. I clamped this behind the reed and looped the warp ends over the pegs instead. Then when all were threaded, I just slid the lease stick across, transferring the loops as I went.

Lots of threading of heddles and reeds later, finished yesterday, I was ready to weave:

I’m not quite managing to get no gaps between the picks of denim rag, but I can live with that. Perhaps a hot wash will shrink everything down to a tighter fabric, too.

I’m taking my time and enjoying the process. After all, I’ll be heading off next week to a writing retreat so it may be a few weeks before I get a weaving fix again.

Unless, of course, I figure out how to fit the knitters loom in the mini with two suitcases, my office chair, food supplies, and my fellow retreater’s golf clubs…