My first blog post for 2020 is the very first weaving I made on my new David 2 Loom.
It was hand woven back in October last year, now as promised you can see the loom all dressed and producing cloth.
I used a linen cotton blend from Rowan for this first weaving something that is easy to warp up with. I wanted to avoid any problems such as broken warps or sticky threads so this was a perfect choice while I got to know my lovely new loom. I dressed the loom with a 5 metre warp a pattern of 3 wide stripes 120 ends.
On the warping frame, then chained off ready to use
The David 2 Loom is dressed from the back to the front, using lease sticks and the built in raddle.
So simple and very satisfying to do, it was easy to load 5 metres of warp on to the loom without assistance.
In these two photos you can see the raddle at the top separating the warp threads and spreading them out to the correct width. In the bottom photo you can see the lease sticks holding the cross for ease of heddle threading in the correct order.
The warp is rolled onto the back roller of the loom, I use strong paper to wind it up with, this keeps the warp threads neat and tight.
I thread the heddles
I sley the reed
Then I was ready to weave, the David 2 Loom offers a beautiful wide shed to throw the shuttle and weave the weft.
I wove this project in Plain Weave or Tabby, the tie up only uses two treadles.
I wanted to just understand and get the feel for the loom as well as produce something beautifully simple from the exercise. Having three colours of equal width across the warp and weaving a border at either end of the runner gave me an interest of design I was looking for.
The grand first cutting the cloth off the loom was so special! Once washed my new table runner and two mats look and feel pretty good for a first project off the loom.
The whole process was brilliant, I know I made the right decision in choosing this particular make of loom. David and I are going to get on very well indeed.
