My obsession with looms, or OLAD

Months before I started weaving last year, I found what seemed like a great deal on a used 4-shaft loom on Kijiji. I was told it was a Nilus Leclerc Loom, and so when my friends brought it over in their truck (it was in pieces, and a 10-hour drive away), I put all the pieces in my spare bedroom/office and waited until my brother could help me put it together. I printed out the instructions and we started. It was missing a couple of nuts, but thankfully my brother had spares with him. After we got the frame put together, I realized we were missing a piece; the castle of the loom. This didn't really make sense, because all the heddle frames were there, and there were some odd-looking dowels. After my brother left (I figured I was missing parts, so we quit), I went back to the Leclerc website and perused their catalogue of various looms, I realized that I did not have a Nilus (jack) loom; I had a Fanny (counterbalance) loom. Which wasn't really disappointing because hey, it was a loom! I was a bit frustrated for a while because it looked like the brake on it was missing some major pieces, but the day of my weaving class, I was perusing the website again and I realized that my loom must be an older model, because it had a Mira brake on it! So I went to Home Depot and picked up an S-hook for 50 cents, put it on the brake, and I finally had a working loom! So my 45" Leclerc Fanny loom was ready to go.

That's my 45" Fanny, with my Leclerc inkle loom in front and my Leclerc tabletop warping mill on the right in the corner. We'll get to the other loom later :)

The week before my weaving class, I found a used Dorothy 15.25" table loom for sale on Kijiji. It came with a bunch of books and some cotton yarn. It wasn't a great deal, but I figured it might be nice to have a table loom too. I kept that loom for nearly a year before I sold it. It's actually a decent loom if you want to weave fast, but it has some drawbacks, such as the levers that can hurt your fingers and break nails easily, and the tension lock that releases when you least expect it :) It did the job, though, and was great for my second weaving class. I don't have any photos of it, unfortunately, but you can find photos of the Dorothy loom on the Leclerc website. I didn't realize the value of the books that came with this loom until several months later, when I actually cracked them open. What a find!

So you're probably wondering by now: what is OLAD? Well, OLAD stands for "Obsessive Loom Acquisition Disorder", which is characterized by the obsessive need to buy more looms. I have OLAD, or rather, I did, until I ran out of space :)

So, by mid-October last year I had 2 looms. I actually did use both of them, so it was worth it :) I made a lot of sock-yarn scarves to start. Gifts for relatives galore.

Then came December, and lo and behold, there was another Fanny loom for a decent price, and hey, it came with a bench. I had been using a rolling office chair with my first loom, but I figured a bench might be nice (I was correct). So in came this baby, a 36" Fanny:

It was in better shape than my first Fanny, and I liked it. But I realized my loom room was getting crowded, so it stayed folded up against the wall for a while.

I did a lot more weaving, and got to try out one of the 8-shaft floor looms at my local guild's studio. I was hooked! So now I was scouring the ads for an 8-shaft loom. Finding nothing in Ontario or Quebec, I turned to Craigslist and the nearby states of Vermont and New York. One day in April, I happened upon an ad from a weaver in Vermont who was moving and destashing some of her looms. She was selling a Louet Spring (which almost never come up used). It was an 8-shaft countermarch loom, upgradeable to 12 shafts. I jumped on it, and convinced one of my dear friends with a truck to drive with me to Vermont for the day. Thankfully the loom wasn't heavy compared to my solid maple Leclerc looms, and we had it in the truck in no time at all. The nice lady included a huge (Costco-sized) bag of various yarns, including silk and linen, so that was an added bonus. Here is my Spring:

When I got the Spring home, I realized that it barely fit in the room with the two Fannies, so that was an issue. But that didn't stop me, even though I figured this was my "forever loom". So now I was up to 3 floor looms and a table loom (I still had the Dorothy). 

In June, I took at weaving class at the Vavstuga Weaving School in western Massachusetts. We were using the Glimakra brand of Swedish loom. I fell in love with the simplicity of the looms, and the construction and adjustibility of the loom and bench. You could just step into the loom to do a lot of the threading, or put the bench inside the loom and use the overhead beater as a backrest (overhead beaters are awesome!). After that class, I determined that I needed wanted a Swedish loom. Oh, and on the way to Shelburne Falls (where Vavstuga is located). I acquired a 22" Harrisville direct tie-up loom (it's in my living room now). Yes, I had a really bad case of OLAD.

Several weeks after the Swedish weaving class, I was again scouring the Craigslist ads (I had given up on Kijiji for this sort of loom), and found one in Ithaca, NY. I managed to borrow another friend's truck, and voila! I had a Glimakra Standard. It was advertised at 45" wide, but it turned out to be 53". Bonus! Here's a photo of it, partially assembled:

This loom came with a TON of accessories:  6 shuttles, many quills, 4 temples, 5 reeds, a reed stand, many warping sticks, a swift, Swedish winder, wool yarn, linen yarn, cottolin yarn, Swedish weaving books (!), and a project was already threaded and sleyed, ready to go. It turned out to be a monk's belt project, so I made a table runner and a couple of towels out of it:

It was fun, and I realized I like overshot weaves, so there are many more plans for them in my future.

Now, in order to fit the Glimakra in my loom room, something had to go. So I moved my Spring into the second spare bedroom (guest and storage room), and the 36" Fanny into my bedroom. I had planned to sell it, but apart from a few looks, no-one wanted to pay my asking price of $300 for a loom in great shape. Their loss, because it is the perfect loom for making dish towels. So... I'm keeping it. I just need to clean out my guest/storage room and rearrange the two looms to fit. 

After I sold my Dorothy, I realized I kind of missed it event though it was a PITA. So I bought an Ashford 8-shaft table loom. It's a nice loom; big and heavy, but nice. So, not very portable. But having 8 shafts is nice. I'm currently working on an undulating twill scarf:

I like it so much, I want to keep it for myself, but it's meant for sale. The yarn is a lovely alpaca/silk blend, so it's soft and warm.

So at this point, my house is full of looms. I have more than enough looms. I felt like my OLAD was cured after I got my Standard. But... recently I've developed a craving for more shafts. The Little Weaver from AVL looks really cute and can have up to 24 shafts, works with WiFi, and costs way less than a computerized floor loom. I might have to start saving up for one soon...

One year ago...

One year ago, I started weaving. That is, I took a weaving class from a really nice teacher, Janet Whittam (http://handweaving.ca). I had bought a 45" Leclerc Fanny 4-shaft loom in June of that year because I knew I wanted to learn to weave, but I was intimidated by the size of it and wasn't sure it was complete. I bought it sight unseen, off Kijiji. For $150,  it was a steal. It came with a few boat shuttles, a handful of bobbins and TWO manual bobbin winders. I was in over my head.

Luckily, I had already started researching weaving by reading the huge amount of information available on Interweave and Weaving Today. So I already knew the parts of a loom,the types of looms and how they worked. Now I would learn how to weave.

Janet's Uncomplicated Weaving class was just that; simple! There were four of us in the class held at her home. We started off by winding our warps; a few issues, but we got through it. Then we learned how to thread our looms. We were all using floor looms; the one I was using was identical to mine, which helped a lot! We learned some good tips about threading, and then moved on to tying on, and after lunch, we started weaving! I had chosen to weave a 2-scarf warp of various thickness and colours of wool yarn, with a doubled curly mohair and wool weft. I would later be cursing the brushed mohair in the warp...

In the course of that weaving day, and the next, I became nearly an expert on how to fix broken warp threads, considering how many broke (mostly the brushed mohair). I even helped one of the other students fix some of her broken threads. By the end of the weekend, I managed to finish both of my scarves, each with a different coloured weft.

This is one of them, with a blue weft. I kept one for myself. The scarf is super warm, great for those bone-chilling winter days in January and February.

We also had the opportunity to try some twills on another student's loom. It was great to see many different looms and work in a non-classroom environment. We also had the opportunity to see several of Janet's rag rug creations and her work-in-progress.

Learning at a production weaver's studio is a great experience; we picked up a lot of tips and tricks. One of them was to wind warps ahead of time so you'll be ready for your next project. I took that to heart, and always have several warps to choose from.

To celebrate my one-year weaving anniversary, I'm going home tonight and weaving.

Thanks, Janet, for introducing me to the craft of weaving! :)