Errors

I don't know how many times I have warped my loom. Over the years I have owned quite a few different looms. Most of them have been 8 shaft. I have several huge three ring binders of samples from most all of the kitchen towels I've woven. Then there are the scarves, mostly woven on a 10" or 15" Cricket rigid heddle loom. I've also woven 30 yards of curtain fabric and long before that about 6 yards of heavy curtain fabric for my bedroom windows. Somewhere along the way I learned how to warp a loom with no errors. 

OK. So the first inch or so might have had to be re-threaded. Just while I was getting my mind around the pattern. But it's rare that I get to the point of weaving my first few picks that I find errors I need to fix. Well, crap.

Right now I have a run of baby blankets on my loom. A friend of mine just had a baby and I told her I would weave the baby a blanket. It's an easy enough plan. I looked over Tom Knisely's book of baby blanket patterns and found a wonderful M's 'n O's pattern that I love. I picked out three happy baby colors - a soft brown, a sage green and a cheerful yellow. And I started to warp the loom. I've done M's 'n O's before. That 30 yards of curtain fabric I mentioned was a similar pattern. You would have thought the warp would have just rolled off my fingertips into perfect order. Well, no.

The pattern repeat is just long enough that things change as you go along. Sometimes it's 1-3 and sometimes it's 3-1. Sometimes it's 2-6 and sometimes it's 6-2. They are just enough alike that telling them apart can be problematic. Or at least it was for me. 

I did go back and fix all the threading errors so by the time I had woven 5 inches or so, all was well. Of course, I could still make treadling errors but so far so good. Now to finish these blankets before this baby is ordering lobster on his own!