Another New-to-Me Loom

 Yet another loom has followed me home.

This time it's a 4 shaft Carolyn by Woolhouse Tools. I once had an 8-shaft version of this model but sold it. I loved that loom, but 8 shafts were a bit much for my limited short term memory to cope with and the loom wasn't getting much use. I had also been having a real struggle warping that loom --- any loom for that matter. I had not yet committed the process to memory and had to follow along, step by step with a book.

Since selling the 8-shaft Carolyn I have woven a lot on the 2-shaft Saori loom that replaced it, gradually becoming more familiar and comfortable with the whole process of warping a loom. I have also acquired several Saori tools that make warping a loom much easier and more ergonomic as was proven while I warped the *other* new loom, the Leclerc Dorothy I introduced in an earlier post. 

In celebration of this most recent addition I treated it to a moisturizing rub down with Howard's Feed and Wax. 

As always, any links in my posts are there solely for your convenience. I receive no kickbacks for your "clicks". 

A New (To Me) Loom

Not too long ago I was fortunate enough to pick up a used Leclerc Dorothy loom for a good price. Unfortunately It was missing its reed, which is a costly and absolutely necessary piece. I was lucky that the local guild had a used reed on hand that they were willing to sell to me at a fraction of its cost if purchased new.

My next improvement to the loom was to change out the notoriously noisy side lever system of the Dorothy to a wooden lever system with texsolve cords. The loom is not just way quieter, it is also much easier and less fatiguing to use.

Then, at the next guild meeting, Betty, a fellow guild member, had a lovely 6 yard warp for sale. I had been looking for an appropriate project for the new little loom so I snapped it up. This is the first of 3 scarves that can be woven on the warp. Thanks Betty!

Silver Lining

There was a silver lining to that dismal cloud. After 3 days of intense research and comparisons, and a lot of contemplation about what would best serve my own particular needs, look what followed me home!

It's not the most expensive all bells and whistles machine, but it's also not a cheapie that is missing features that I find important. I'm really looking forward to getting to know this beauty better. She's a Janome 4120 QDC-B.

Now if you'll excuse me I have an instructional DVD to watch and then I'll go PLAY! The machine is actually quite intuitive to run, but I'm one of those rare people that actually go and read owners manuals from cover to cover before ever touching a new purchase. After all, I wouldn't want to break anything!

All Dressed and Ready for New Years

Fully dressed and ready for the New Years celebration.

 

The loom that is, not me!

Some weavers like to start a new year with the loom dressed with something new, full of potential. I'm wanting to do more weaving in 2020 than I did in 2019 so I felt a fresh new warp was a good place to start. Ironically, as I pack up the Christmas decorations, this warp will likely be for Christmas stockings to be sold at the Christmas Craft Market next November. 

Unveiling and Grand Tour

Welcome to my new and improved sewing room! Let me give you the "Grand Tour".

The decorating theme of the room is "boro", a type of patching and simple stitching technique originating in Japan. In keeping with that theme I made a welcoming rag wreath for the door using this tutorial found on Pinterest, with some changes. For one thing I used denim from jeans so the strips needed to be longer so I could tie them. I also added strips from quilting cottons in indigo prints and finally added small white artificial flowers.

 

Standing just inside the doorway and looking across to the window you get a good view of the wall colour (Behr paint's "bootcut") and the beautiful vinyl plank flooring my husband laid. The floor colour is "driftwood". I love it!

Together he and I made the pressing station on the left. More details on a previous blog post if you follow the link. I keep all things related to pressing and measuring, along with much of my cutting tools, in the drawers and behind the cupboard doors. The baskets below are full of fabric.

Directly under the window is a narrow table that was originally for a knitting machine. I didn't initially plan to use it in here but I have found I need a convenient "landing place" for things that I want available, yet out of the way, when I'm working on a project. It allows my pressing station and sewing table to be clutter free when they are in use. The little table also works well for spinning with my charkha and yet it is narrow, only 16" deep, so it doesn't take up much room. The runner on the table right now is a Saori weaving and it's just there for the Christmas season.

General lighting is provided by the LED track lighting on the ceiling, purchased from Home Depot, while bright task lighting is provided by shop lights mounted beneath Bergshult/Granhult wall shelves from IKEA.

As practical as all those lights are I think my favourite are the little dragonfly lights. I leave them on when I'm not in the room and the main light is off. It provides a very inviting, soft, "mood" light.

Standing at the window and looking back towards the other wall you can see my Linnmon/Alex desk from IKEA, another task light mounted under a shelf, and a little shelf bought ages ago at Micheal's. I keep most of my embroidery floss clipped to it and sorted by colour number. The chair is a Langfjall purchased at IKEA. Yes, we made several trips to IKEA. 

Continuing the Boro patching/stitching theme I sewed custom covers for each of my machines, sewing, serging, and coverstitching. The covers might look lumpy and bumpy but it's because they follow the shape of the machine underneath. 

And here's the real workhorse of the room. My 25 cube KALLAX unit. It's not in the configuration I originally intended. Once I started putting my stuff away I found that I wanted more doors and less bins. A lot of what I had to store worked best on a shelf, rather than in a pull out bin but I really did not want all the visual clutter of filled shelves showing so we bought more of the doored inserts. I love the clean, clutter free look.

I reserved the centre top shelf as a living space for "Willie", my little creative mascot, a Dream High Studio House Elf.

As we leave my little sewing sanctuary I want to show you a few small details up close.

Beside the door and visible from my sewing chair, a cute little clock purchased from an Etsy seller some time ago.

Above the door more sewing mice. This time in a framed cross-stitch my daughter made for me years ago.

And shutting off the lights as we leave the room -- a light fixture decorated with alcohol inks. 

If there is anything else you'd like to see up close, or if you have any questions about items you've seen in the "tour" just let me know and they may be covered in a future blog post. 

Meet Bella

This active little girl is "Bella". I found her today at PetsMart. I went out specifically looking for a light coloured betta (easier to see in my tank) that had shorter fins. Although longer finned male bettas can be stunningly beautiful they are weighed down by all that finnage and eventually become very sedentary spending most of their time stuck to the filter intake to rest. I wanted a fish that would be active and fun to watch so I was looking for either a plackat male or some sort of light or colourful female.

I've heard that the female fish are more active in general anyway. This little girl, with her white/clear colouring with red and black spots, may carry the marble gene. If that's the case she could colour up very nicely. We'll see. Anyway, she is definitely fulfilling the "active" requirement.

Solomon's Debut

Meet my beautiful new Betta fish, Solomon, just purchased today. His name means "peace" in Hebrew.

I'm not sure, but I think he'd be classified as a "Half Moon Fancy". 

I chose him for his striking colours, but I'm happy to find that he is also a very peaceful fish, not bothering his tank mates at all. 

CH60 Inaugural Warp

Warp's on the new Saori CH60 and I'm back weaving again.



New Saori looms come with a pre-threaded, sleyed, and beamed warp so once the loom itself is assembled it only takes a few minutes to tie on and your're off and weaving. It was a welcome reward for the time spent actually building the loom!

The colourful blips in the first section of weaving have generated quite a bit of interest in the Saori forums I've posted the picture in, so I'll explain in more detail for those who do not frequent those forums.

The warp is the all black cotton pre-wound that came with the loom It's 150 threads wide and 6m long. It's threaded one end per dent in a 5dp-cm reed. It's a bit widely spaced for my tastes but I wasn't about to mess with re-sleying the whole thing over that.



The 'background' weft is "Dalegarn - Falk" (100% wool sportsweight) that I had on hand from a failed knitting project. The pretty pops of colour and texture that so many are raving over is from a ball of "Brunello Black" (67% wool, 33% acrylic) which is a discontinued super bulky weight yarn. The ball in the photo is obviously not the colour used in the weaving. I used that colour up.

My plan is to use this yardage to make hats. The main part will be woven but each hat will have a hand knitted ribbing. We'll see how that plan goes once the yardage is wet finished. I think this first section may be a bit stiff for the intended purpose. I've got another section done now and I'm being super careful to gently 'place' the weft so that there will be room for a slight fulling of the finished fabric.

Some Assembly Required

This could be -- interesting.

                        Perhaps even --- Challenging!


My new loom arrived yesterday afternoon. I was warned. Yes I was. I knew it was coming in pieces and would need assembly. Perhaps I was unprepared for the magnitude of this job?



This is how far I've gotten so far.



Yes, so far I've only unwrapped most of it and identified (most) of the pieces. To be fair I spent all day yesterday, and well into the evening, decluttering, organizing and cleaning my weaving room. I only got around to opening the box this morning. I have a lengthy eye exam scheduled for today so I'm not likely to get the whole loom assembled, let alone operating, until tomorrow, but I'll pick away at it whenever I have a moment.