I blame Sally. And my husband.
At the Guild of Long Draw Spinners Sally ran a workshop to introduce novices to weaving I was unashamedly the first person to sit down at one of the looms and 'have at it' - and found I couldn't, wouldn't stop. I didn't have a clue what I was doing, so both Sally and Maggie were very patient in their explanations to me, The idea was to play with colour and texture, so that's what I did. Luckily both Sally and Eileen had brought a wide variety of yarns to sample. (By the way, I really dislike the white textured stuff in the photo - it makes the weaving look like a threadbare towel. The ribbon yarn above it though, I love!)
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| My first weave since making a tiny purse at school 40 years ago! |
I did try very hard to leave the loom alone for someone else to have a go, but when I noticed that no one else had done so, I went back. I wove all day. Then Sally did something incredibly kind - she lent me her knitters loom for a month! (It's not her only one I hasten to add).
I took it home, I sat in the kitchen and wove all evening. When I was madly into papercrafts, I did lots of swaps of yarn and thread samples - I ended up with boxes of small amounts of novelty yarns all wound onto embroidery floss bobbins. They were ideal for this. So the weaving went on.
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The next day a friend came to visit. I showed her the loom and she had a go. For two hours. Not the only one hooked then. When she went, I must confess I took her work out so I could say that the whole thing was woven by me. And I started again. And did a bit more in the evening. And the following two evenings because while I was at work all I could think about was the weaving waiting for me at home. Oh, and how my shoulders and upper arms were a bit achey.
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| A riot of colour and textures |
I'm not sure if this is an infatuation or the real thing. Only time will tell I suppose. I do know that I've found myself thinking about buying my own loom and wondering what type I should get.
Sally wasn't expecting to lend her loom out, so she didn't bring all of the equipment for warping up etc. I'm going to have woven to the end of the warp before the month week is up, so what do I do then? At least there's another woolly day on Saturday (why yes, I am a guild tart, glad you noticed) where I can get advice as to whatever I need to finish everything off, sort out the numerous ends etc.
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| I am looking forward to seeing the whole thing unfurled |
So, if you've been paying attention, you might be wondering why I'm blaming my husband for this sudden interest. It's not that I'm looking for interests to take me out of the house and away from housework (never had that problem). The short answer is that he knows me too well. When I started knitting he predicted I'd end up spinning, despite my protestations. When I took up spinning, he told me I'd want a loom next. Maybe I'm a good wife who doesn't want to confound his expectations?!
