My loomy loom -the building and troubleshooting

Now I guess it´s time to introduce my warp-weighed loom.

Hubby and I built it in the summer. Nice little project for semi-accomplished carpenter and semi-able helper...

We used round wood beams from the local hardware. The frame beams are 4,4 cm thick. I Would actually use flat wood (like 2x2 or even 2x4 for a really wide loom) if we did it now. Easier to make holes in the right places and also easier to attach the holders for the upper beam where the warp is tied.

Here is the first time the basic frame is up. Joint by wooden pegs, notches for better fit and ultimately tablet woven bands to tie it tight. We used "double beaming" on the top of the frame to make it more sturdy. The frame beam (seen here) and separate upper beam with Y-shaped holders.

The Very Thorough And Official Blueprint

These diagonal notches for the upper beam holders were a bitch and a half...

Test assembly number two to place aforesaid holders.

Note the heddle stick (the long one in the middle) and the heddle stick holders, that are ingeniously pegged to holes in the side beams... Also these holders I´d like to modify some. The apparatus holding the heddle stick drawn when weaving is basically just a wooden peg here. It´s easy to make and okay to use, but it could be a bit sturdier. The heddle stick sometimes slips if there´s a lot of tension in the warp. Also, the places for heddle stick holders could start lower and be closer to each other. Weaving twill I need to get the heddles just the right length to get all the sheds to open enough (or at all...).

And now we are ready to rumble! 

Bands for assembly and the weddle holder sticks artistically dumped on my precious heirloom chest from the year 1839.

Up and ready for testing!

This bind caused a lot of gray hair, as it wasn´t tight enough this way. The weight of the warps and the jolting of actual weaving caused the upper beam to roll when it definetly should not, so we made some changes here. I´ll introduce the changes when I get some photos.

Making the first warp using the loom frame. Handy. I made this one the traditional way i.e. tablet woven band, whose wefts are the warps of the future cloth.

Ready for the tedious and time-consuming task of threading the heddles. More of this nicety when I introduce my WIP, which is twill. Oh boy, when this photo was taken I knew nothing of heddling... 

Weaving. My beautiful weaving sword on the heddle... Some things are best done by a real craftsman (my father in law in this case). Note also the tablets on the edges of cloth: I tried to figure how strengthening the edges that way would work without finding any instructions. The principle is sound, but it slowed my weaving some.

And heres one of my three test pieces from that first warp. It was three coloured linen warp, and this is weaved so, that only warp threads can be seen. I´m finishing the end with another tablet woven band. And that isn´t as easy as I thought... I tend to make the band too tight, which draws the cloth quite unaesthetically... Practise makes perfect I guess.

So. Linen was easy. Twill is proving to be more challenging. More of that later...