No. Don't worry. I did not suddenly go out and acquire another loom. Trust me. A full sized dobby floor loom is so out of my picture right now, I wouldn't even know where to find the camera.
But not so long ago, my weaving teacher found an old, under-appreciated AVL 16 harness dobby loom. It came to live in the weaving studio but space and time issues meant that its assembly trajectory has been a mild one.
And in I walked tonight with my color gamp blanket project. A color gamp is essentially a way to look at a rainbow of colors in your warp, and the same rainbow in the weft and see how all the colors interplay. I bought mine from Halcyon in 3/2 cotton and it comes with a pattern for a huck lace baby blanket, which has a weaving width of 40". And the only floor loom in the studio that was available was 36" wide.
Well, the only assembled floor loom was 36" wide.
Then Nathalie, my teacher, got this inspired look on her face.
That loom is big enough, she said, pointing to the dobby loom. But it's not ready yet.
Well, what if I help you put it together?
You really want to do that?
Yeah, I really want to do that, I said with the kind of smile you will only ever see on the face of an engineer faced with a toy to assemble. Most definitely.
Now, a good bit of it was already together, so I got to start with connecting the harnesses to the dobby and making the dobby work. The dobby is the part of the loom that helps automate the raising and lowering of the harnesses for weaving. You won't be surprised to know that figuring out the dobby just geeked me out, both on the computer and weaving geek sides of the equations. Pushing the treadles, watching the harnesses go up and down the way they were supposed to. Good times, I tell you, good times.
By the end of the evening, it still wasn't all together, but I felt like I had learned so much just by helping to put together the parts that I did (I also installed some of the cloth beam assembly) -- I can't wait to work on it a little more next week. It's almost like watching something come to life!
There was even knitting today... I've started swatching for Aspinwall. Standard ol' stockinette swatch looks good, and I'm most of the way through the half-brioche stitch swatch. This yarn is absolutely delicious to work with . And the half-brioche stitch is a lot more fun to do than a standard K1 P1 ribbing.
You make putting all of these things together a lot of fun. I'm usually just a hair too impatient and want to have my crafting fun now! Sometimes I'm surprised that I got around to putting together my loom even though it is just a rigid heddle and was super easy.
I like assembling too, particularly with the right partner. It makes you want to have more time, so as to keep on enjoying and also to get it finished.
That right there is why I'm the one who assembles everything in our household.
I'm not an engineer, but my Dad was, and I do love to put stuff together. I think my 10 year old would love to see how the treadles and harnesses work. I guess geekiness is hereditary : )