Purple Knit: I caved in

When I took my yarn dyeing class at TLD Designs, I saw Tammy's weaved scarves, stoles and some garments, I was so mesmerized by her FOs. I know it costs "a lot" of money to get into this hobby, but I just want to try it to see what "weaving" is all about.

I signed up the beginners class #1, it will take total of 12 hours to finish the class (3 hours at a time). My first meet was on 2/14, Tammy spent about 1.5 hours just to go over the different types of looms, and parts of the looms (way too many things to remember). Then I got to decide what my first project will be, I picked a long scarf (100"). Then we spent another 1/2 hour to 45 min to write up a worksheet for my scarf; basically how much yarn I need and how much yarn will go to waste and how the shrinkage rate will affect my finish scarf....lots of math. After all that, I got to pick the yarns, ooh, my favorite part. Tammy said this also a time consuming part, some people will take forever to decide what to use, it's just too many possibilities. I wasn't so bad, I picked mine out pretty quick--purple theme, I picked 2 rayon chenille yarns, one metallic thread, one thick & thin novalty yarn and one royan snob yarn (some yarns I just couldn't come up with a suitable names, sorry :-p). I found this on All Fiber Arts's website, it shows the steps of how to warp a loom, it explained better if you are lost already ^O^.

My worksheet

Then I got to use the "warping board" and "warping paddle" to measure the warp threads (yarns) and put it on the warping board. I know it probably doesn't make any sense if you don't know anything about weaving, that's how I felt for my first 90 min of the class (totally clueless)! But once Tammy got me going then I started to get the idea about the "warping board and the paddle". I can't say I completely know what I was doing, but I was able to followed her instructions pretty well, Tammy said by the time I get to my 3rd projects, I'll have better ideas about weaving (3rd project? How am I going to achieve that?). It took me about 1/2 hour to 45 min to put my "threads" onto the warping board. That was my Beginner Weaving 1-1.

We met again on 2/16, the goal was to put all the threads on to the "reed" and then onto the loom. Sound easy, eh? NOOOO! I took down my threads from the warping board with no problem, piece of cake!

Here is the hard part, well, not hard, but very tedious; I need to thread all my threads (151 threads to be exact) thru the "reed" and then put the reed on to the loom and then thread all 151 threads thru the "heddles". I was very concentrated at this task, if not, my finished scarf will not look the way I wanted. This process took me about 3.5 hours. Next week, I will need to "wind the warp" and then "tie the warp on the loom" then I can start weaving!!