Weaving and Looms

It’s all Denise’s fault . . again! It’s ok if you don’t believe my story — Vince doesn’t either.

Back in February or March, 2011, after having wanted a loom, and having visited The Yarn Barn in Lawrence, Kansas several times, and taking a class there, I bought a Schacht flip 25″ loom.

At that time, I had three times more square feet in my house than we do now and I did not have a blind dog.

The stand has awkward wooden legs, and with the size of our current house, and with Rita being blind and running into things that are in the way, the only place I can set this up is in one of the extra bedrooms. There’s not much room to walk around it in there and the room is so small that warping it is a total pain in the behind. I have to turn it a certain way and then crawl over the bed to get to the warping pegs. Not a good thing to try!

Once I get it warped and am ready to start weaving, Rita stands at the door, even if I leave the door open and put up the baby gate, and whines and barks because she wants to come in there, and then, she’s running into the stand again. I’ve tried taking it into the sewing room and using it in there but Boots thinks weaving is more interesting than knitting and I seem to tire of dealing with him before he tires of me being in his room.

So, I haven’t done much weaving at all.

I was thinking that with the 15″ Schacht Cricket loom, I would sit in my chair, hold it in my lap and weave. Denise has this loom and she makes beautiful things with it, so I wrote her and asked her about it. She said . . no, you need to either butt it against a table or use a stand. The stand is out because of the legs and Rita. I had kinda ruled it out. Then, I thought . . I can use the table in the dining room. The kitchen, dining room and living room are all open. Rita doesn’t feel like I’ve abandoned her so long as I’m in the same room with her.

I mentioned it to Vince. I thought we were not getting anything else in this house til after we move.

Honestly, I’ve spent the better part of the last 20 years waiting to move. When we were in Kentucky, there were things I wanted to do to the kitchen and the bedroom desperately needed new carpet but we always knew we weren’t staying there. In Missouri, there wasn’t anything the house itself needed but our furniture didn’t really fit the house but we knew we wouldn’t be there long so we made do with what we had. Here, for the longest time we thought we’d be here forever and then we realized we, or maybe just me, wanted to be closer to Chad and at some point, living out in the woods with no family around wasn’t feasible for old people. So, here we are, again, with life on hold deciding when and where we’re going to move.

Then we had this conversation:

Vince: What can you make with that?
Me: Placemats!
Vince: How many placemats can you buy for the cost of the loom?
Me: Scarves.
Vince: How many scarves do you need?
Me: It keeps me busy and gives my hands a break from knitting.
Vince: Would you have to buy more yarn?
Me: Never!
Vince: OK! Get it!

If one 15″ loom is an issue for moving . . we have a bigger problem than that loom. So, it’s been ordered. I’m really excited to be able to sit and weave. It’s a great way to use yarn more quickly than knitting. I guess I could weave up a bunch of scarves and give them away and that would make up for the extra space the 15″ loom is taking up! Men and their thinking.