By the time I had ordered my loom I had already watched dozens of hours of videos on YouTube. I wanted to see different looms in action, see what could be made, etc. I settled on a table loom for the sole fact that I figured it would be easier to convince my husband that a small, foldable table loom would be a good idea to see if Weaving was really for me before I bought a thousands-dollar behemoth loom that would take over our living space. (to be fair he quilts so there is quilting stuff EVERYWHERE!)
So I settled on an Ashford 8-shaft 32″ table loom. It was a good price, looked great, great reviews…
Knowing that due to the pandemic, my loom would not arrive for 2-4 months, I wanted to assuage the wait by learning as much as I could so that I could get started right away. I had already watched the videos on how to put the loom together, Kelly Casanova made a great one that specifically showed the assembly of the Ashford loom.
While watching a video from Andy on his Curmudgeon Weaves channel, I heard him mention that Jane Stafford had an online guild. Now, I had watched videos that Jane had done for Louet and had actually watched her warping videos several times so I was excited at the prospect of more from her. I was amazed at the amount of information that she had for the online guild and how inexpensive the subscription was. I joined in the middle of year 4, so I binged the first 3 years for the next 2 months, watching several of the sections a couple of times. There is such a wealth of information and Jane is such a great presenter.
So by the time I received my loom, I had so much information teeming in my mind, once Eric and I go the loom put together, I wound a warp (gnashing my teeth because it looks so easy in all the videos and it wasn’t), got it wound on (a bit easier but still sweat-inducing), and got it wound on and with a whoosh of self-congratulations after having tied the warp on…
…I broke down because the shed wouldn’t open right, everything looked weird, I was devastated. I had prepped myself, walked through everything as I was doing it, I was such an idiot. Then, I noticed, I had not put the tie-on rod over the cloth beam, but under it. I did the first of many, many, many stupid mistakes. Once I retied the warp the feeling of elation came back and I was weaving!
Next time, my first real project.