Weaving

Top-most images are the most recents projects. Everything is ordered chronologically.

I first got into weaving after getting super hyperfixated on Silksong. Eventually, I ran out of new playthroughs to watch, and got bored of watch Charlie Slimecicle's 36hr VOD for the 40th time. My thought process was something along the lines of: Weavers... I weave... Silksong... . And I have only really recently stopped associating the two. I have been trying to get off my phone more, and replacing weaving with some of the mindless scrolling. Even if I have videos or podcasts playing in the background, my vision probably isn't suffering as much. If I wear my glasses.

How and What?

My first loom was bought off Ebay via my partner because uhhh my account got banned for suspicious activity (I was liking too many wheelchair listings :c ). It is a Spear's Vintage Wooden Weaving Loom for children - I think? It's a heddle loom in size 3. Here's a guide/explanation to Rigid Heddle Looms.

The way that I weave, the tension is too tight for this loom. I like to weave with a tighter tension because I like to make weft-faced fabrics where you beat the horizontal (weft) threads tightly enough to obscure the length-wise warp threads. I've split the wood on the rollers multiple times now, but I'm stubbornly just super-glueing it back together as much as I can. Partly because I don't want to buy another loom (most new standard tend to be >£120), partly because I don't want to set up another loom, and then partly because I am a bit attached to my current loom.

Apart from weft-faced fabrics, I also really love doing tartan, plaid, and plain. I want to learn how to do twill weaves - that's denim etc!

My favourite material to work with is 100% cotton yarn. I originally bought a ton to crochet flowers with, and then discovered that I don't have the patience to make the same thing over and over again. I tend to use dk or aran weight yarn, but rarely use

I am very lucky that my partner is willing to make me a loom!!! So, I'm very much looking forward to that.

Projects

I am not very good at taking photos of everything, and all of the stages. I also tend to give away things that I weave spontaneously, or before I remember to snap a picture. So, enjoy this gallery :)

Ongoing: Since his favourite colour is blue, I'm making him a dishtowel that (surprise surprise) I had absolutely no faith in as a visual thing. But! As the pattern continues and the towel expands, I'm seeing the vision and enjoying myself again.

05/10/26 I took a long break because of some rather extreme upheavals in my life and also moving places. Whenever I feel particularly awful, I like to treat myself. I decided to treat myself to actually having money and using some old yarn that I was using to make a star garland that I had stopped doing indefinitely.

It made this absolutely beautiful gradient that I was not trusting the process with whatsoever. I'd love to make a thing with a full yarn cake or two. I think it would make a really beautiful mirrored gradient towel.

02/28 - 03/xx/26 I got bored of this relatively quickly, but did end up committing to it fully, if only to eventually combine this with another panel to create functional cloth for my grandparents. How functional... hmm. Not sure.

02/24/26 So, I absolutely hate setting up the loom. It takes so much time and gets tangled so easily (or maybe I just suck at making sure the threads do not tangle). So, I had this grand idea. Why not just set up the loom once with some sturdy cotton yarn and just make a ton of towels with it? A great plan, this was, until I started setting it up. It took me two straight days of pain and torture. I'm sure there was an easier way to do it.

01/24/26 Following on from the previous post... Here's some dodgy completed pics for y'all to enjoy. Shipped these off to England :O

Also: did a checkered piece. One very misshapen, another around March was created to be more symmetrical and complete for my maternal grandma.

01/xx/26 This loom set-up gave me two hand-towels which is very cool! I made a plaid pattern for one of the towels, ran out of yarn, so then just made the second with a yellow weft. I should try and grab some pics off my friends at some point.

I was able to add strips of cardboard while winding up the warp which helped keep the yarn at the same tension. Since this project, I've not had the foresight to ask a friend to help me hold the yarn during the process so no luck on keeping the tension right without adding pens and stuff to make it right.

01/xx/26 I believe I gave this one away to a friend. Same as the first weave, just using the full length of the heddle.

01/xx/26 The very first thing I wove, I used dyed dk weight wool that I was originally going to crochet into blankets! Super soft stuff, but similar to a microfibre towel in my hands.

You can see in this image that I didn't really know how to keep the yarn tension consistent throughout. There's also a lot of bits where I have made mistakes and not gone over or under the warp correctly. This type of yarn is also NOT ideal for acting as the warp since it pulls apart relatively easily!

I used the technique they reccomended setting up the loom with - which is fine, but not standard anymore.