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.

I started building a loom today.

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

More here.

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)

Question for the weavers

Partner was complaining the other day that there were not enough rag rugs to always have a clean one on hand for when the dog goes out and in. Portland is really wet in the winter.
I of course immediately began thinking on how to turn all my old fabric scraps and worn out clothes into rugs. I know almost nothing about weaving but was willing to give it a go. As my mind worked on solving problems that were occurring there I began knitting a rug from old T-shirts, (see below). I wasn't really pleased with the resulting fabric but was having problems resolving the issue of joining the strips end to end without having to stop and sew them on as I went. A single long strip sewn together beforehand seemed like a bad idea as there would then be a lot of "tail" to pull through with each pass through the loom and I didn't want to build a complicated loom. I finally stumbled on to the idea of slitting the end of each strip and then joining the kind of like joining two loops. No bulky knots!
For the loom I just took 4 boards, two of which were drilled with pilot holes every 1/2 inch and screwed those two to the other two. A double strand of string was then strung on to the frame and with the use of a bamboo "collar pointer" weaving commenced.

I'm getting an "hourglass" shape thing going on though. Should the nails be closer together? Is there a trick I need to know to avoid this situation?

Here's the knit rug start. It's old T-shirts cut in continuous spirals and wound up as "yarn" and garter stitch knit on size 11 U.S. needles.

so far this fall...

...1 scarf, 1 hat and two pairs of mittens. All of which are already very much needed. It's chilly out there.

prototype puppy pullover for Pepper

The shaping and sizing are a little off, but now I have the info to go ahead and rewrite the pattern to fit better.