Tuesday, January 19, 2010

The first rug is off the new loom


Made from Flannel scraps, sheets and shirts on cotton string it measures 22"x54" (56cmx137cm). Large enough to absorb lots of mud and rain from any puppy paw that has to walk over it to get back in the house ;)
While building the loom I also built a knitting frame to use my T-shirt scraps. It makes a nice thick double knit fabric, but frankly, I'm not that impressed with the process. Hooking the preceding loops up over the new loops is tedious. It's probably easier than knitting such a large heavy piece on really long big needles but I think I'll stick to woven rag rugs.
The piece is 30"/76cm wide, which will probably end up being it's length as I think I'm just going a couple more inches and binding off. Been there, done that, moving on.

Monday, January 18, 2010

The Loom is finished, for now.

I finished the loom over the weekend. I put some pegs on the bottom of the back to use as a warping board, you have to sit on the floor to do it, but it works. there are a few things that need to be improved on, but overall it seems to work fairly well.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

I started building a loom today.


It is pretty specific to rag rug weaving but is looking good so far.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Rag Rug, Part two


After getting some advice I ripped out the first rug weaving attempt and started over. The result is the one on the floor. The hanging rug is my second rug and I am now working on the third one. Between rugs number 2 and 3 I discovered what heddle bars and shed sticks are for so this one is going even faster.

I feel almost secure enough to now build a more advanced vertical floor loom. Something along the lines of this.
But a lot less expensive. I have most of the materials needed on hand in my woodshop, I just need to figure out the design of the loom based on what I have to work with.

(click on photo for enlarged view)