I read somewhere that "she who dies with the most looms wins," LOL. I don't know if I'll ever have the MOST, but now I have FOUR and I'm working on building two more:
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| Homemade Inkle loom |
This was my first inkle loom, which I built out of 1x3" pine with oak dowels, back in 2019. It's a bit unwieldy to use because it's so big (3’ long!), and the sliding tension bar with the butterfly nut lock is not all that great - it hurts my fingers to use, and I can never get the tension exactly where I want it. It makes about 4y of trim when fully warped. This loom worked for me for a few years, but I like my new inkle loom better:
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| Hand-me-down Inkle loom |
This inkle loom I got from a friend who was moving out of the country, earlier this year. It’s much smaller, but when fully warped it makes about 4y of band. The tensioning bar on it is sooo much easier to use than my big inkle loom, and it's much more reliable as far as getting the warp to the right tension. The only problem with it is that some of the pegs are so close together that I can't get my fingers around them to untwist the warp threads, and I don't know what to do about that. I tried removing one of them with a small saw...but none of my saws are small enough to fit into the space between the pegs, either! Argh. There's also a spot on the frame where someone repaired [something?] with HUGE lag bolts and nuts, and the bolts stick out and poke me in the leg while I'm trying to weave with this thing in my lap.
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| Oseberg loom, A&S April 2024 |
This is the miniature version of the Oseberg upright loom that I built in YEAR. The warp is tied to the frame uprights with a leather thong, and it's incredibly easy to move the warp around and untwist the threads - you just remove the thong, untwist, and tie it back up again. The whole thing breaks down into three pieces, so it's easy to transport and travel with. There are a couple of problems with this one: firstly, this loom is so lightweight that I have to clamp it to a table in order to use it, and the only table I have that I can use is my dining room table. That's the second problem - at my dining room table I have to stand next to the loom and weave from the side next to the loom, which hurts my shoulder and my hip. I think a full-sized version of this might take care of both of these issues.
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| Beka rigid heddle loom |
A friend recently gave me this Beka 4” rigid heddle loom, and I spent some time this past weekend figuring out how to warp it up and weave on it. This is NOT a loom for tablet weaving - it’s meant to be used with a rigid heddle, not cards. I thought I’d try it out for card weaving, but I very quickly realized that dealing with twist in the warp would be such a huge pain in the ass (removing the warp from the backboard, untwisting, putting the board back on) that it’s basically just no good for card weaving. Lesson learned! I do plan to get a rigid heddle and try this thing the way it’s meant to be used at some point in the future.
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| Pieces for full-sized upright loom |
This is the first loom I'm in the process of building. It's an upright loom like the Oseberg, but more in the early Medieval style which you see in paintings. The white upright posts are stair banisters (newel posts? I'm not sure of the terminology), and the feet and stretcher bar(s) are made out of 1x2" sticks of maple. I started working on this in my teacher’s workshop at War of the Rams, and brought it home with me to finish building. When finished it will warp and weave the same way as my mini Oseberg loom, and I'm hoping it'll be a bit easier to sit at since it's bigger.
I'm also hoping to build myself a new inkle loom this spring to replace my existing two inkle looms, both of which have problems, but I'm nowhere near there yet. I have lots of sewing and weaving to get done, and stuff around the house, before I'll have time to build a new loom.
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I'm planning to bring my tablet weaving and some of my looms to Laurel's Prize Tourney* this year as a "body of work" type display. I have TONS of weaving I want to get done before then, and not enough time to do everything I want, so we'll see how it ends up looking.
*Laurel's Prize Tourney is NOT a tournament or a competition, and there's no "prize". Apparently it used to be a competition many years ago and the name was just never changed, or something. What it IS, though, is basically a show-and-tell event where you just bring whatever you're working on - a project, or a body of work, or something you're in the middle of that you might want help with or advice about - and you get to speak with various Laurels who stop by to visit with you and see your stuff, and you get to geek out with other artists all day and see everyone's amazing work, and it's a totally AWESOME event. It can be very stressful - after all, LPT is all about putting yourself out there where everyone can see you, and it can be intimidating trying to make a good impression on people - but it's also VERY fun.
