Warped

Is what you would have thought if you had seen Ian and I at 11.30 last night tying ourselves up in knots in the dining room. And indeed, you would have been correct as Ian and I were warping my new loom. This is a birthday present from Ian and it is a bigger version of my knitter’s loom, although this is a fixed heddle loom and doesn’t fold up. It is by Ashford, which is the same people that made both my spinning wheels, my knitter’s loom and my drum carder. We like their stuff, however there was an error in the assembly instructions which was unusual as we’ve commented in the past how good their instructions are.

The new loom is 80 cms wide, which is small enough to be able to work with propped on my lap, but big enough that I can produce a nice width of fabric. 

The reason why there were two of us doing the warping was that I had started doing it late and was in danger of having it only half finished and I didn’t want to leave it out over night as Pirata and Babbity Bumble have an uncanny knack of finding the most inconvenient place to sleep (Babbity – on top of a loaf of bread which is left to rise and Pirata  – anywhere he shouldn’t be).

I spent the winter on a single spinning project which is some light weight yarn spun with odds and ends of fibres including wool/cotton/flax/rayon/mohair/silk. The wool fibre was purple, green and blue which I hoped would blend nicely together. It did – so much so that it is now a sludgey khaki colour. Hey ho. However, having spent so long spinning it and the materials being such nice quality, I will weave the yarn and if it looks too dull when it is finished, I’ll simply over dye it.

Alfie continues to settle in well. He is an adorable little dog and has slotted straight into the family.  We’ve had to wire the doors to Larry’s cage shut as he has developed Houdini like skills and we wouldn’t want him to get out and drop to the floor if we weren’t in the room. He isn’t very happy about it – and has been rattling his cage loudly to let us know!