Continous versus Weave-It

I was lucky enough to run into Hazel Rose looms a few years ago when I belonged to a Tri-Loom Yahoo message board/email list.  At the time, there was a lot of experimentation by small woodworker/fiber artist teams who met on that list.  They discussed different ways of using the looms they made and different ways of making the looms.

The goal was to create a form of weaving which involved small to large frames studded with nails or hooks.

Small portable looms have been used for thousands and thousands of years.The types archaeologists tend to dig up, are usually of the tapestry or back strap or rug sort.  These looms require some sort of stationary anchor or weights in order to maintain tension on the warp threads. While you could unhook from the tree or whatever, in order to move your weaving with the tent and the herd, once you sat down again to start weaving, the loom was stationary.  You wouldn't pick it up and take it to the fire to work on while watching the pot boil, or pack it in a sack and carry it to town to work on while waiting in line.

Small modular looms that employ nails or hooks are much more portable, but are also not new.  "Weave-It" and "Love-or-Money" looms were popular during the last depression when weaving patchwork quilt size squares were popular among housewives.  They advertised themselves as perfect for creating an afghan or patching a pants knee. More than one person bought one of those looms believing they could actually weave an entire woolen suit and wear it in public and possibly sell clothes they had hand-made with it. 

These looms followed the mindset that you would have a warp and a weft.  One would warp the looms first and then, using a needle, weave back and forth to create a square of cloth.

When I first joined the Tri-Loom group they were concentrating on largish modular looms in the shape of a triangle that could be woven continuously.  While there was some talk that weaving shawls on these looms and selling them at craft fairs could easily recoup the cost -- that idea didn't last long. 

Weaving this way is no get-rich-quick thing.  There's no market for handwork here in the US that could possibly recoup the cost of the yarn.  There is so much cheap machine made crap flooding the market, you will not be selling stylish hand woven business suits using one of these small looms.  You will, however, be making your own blankets, scarves and shawls and ruanna's and your own washcloths, dishcloths and towels that will last you a lifetime.

The continuous method is different in that, there was no warp and weft.  The weaver doesn't warp the looms and then begin weaving.  The weaver attaches the yarn to a nail and starts weaving. 

The yarn is both warp AND weft. This type of weaving has the advantage that it was very homespun and novelty yarn friendly.  For the most part with harness and rigid-heddle looms, warp thread has to be uniform and smooth.  You can use whatever you like for the weft ... but the warp has to  be something that can be stretched at high tension and stand up to the abrasion of heddles.  While hand-spinners in earlier centuries produced yarn that could stand up to a loom, and while I have done so -- it's not fun.  It's hard work and there's nothing artsy-fartsy about it.

Modular looms, on the other hand, minimized abrasion on the yarn.  While weaving with some of the fuzzier mohair yarn is extremely difficult and time consuming -- other hand spun types like boucle and thick-N-thin bloom with this style of weaving. 

Usually, if you're going to weave Weave-It style with mock warp and weft, you'll need to use a Weave-It loom.  And you can find them for sale on eBay and elsewhere.  Hazel's looms, on the other hand, offer the best of both styles. They can be used either as a continuous weave loom or as a Weave-It type.  And interestingly enough, the every present X-mas variegated yarn behaves differently in each style of weaving.  You can see from the ruler that I've estimated that the Xmas yarn changes color about every 14 inches.

On the left is the Weave-It (WI)style and on the right is the continuously (C) woven.    Laying down a warp and then needle weaving a weft produces a plaid-ish square.  Weaving continuously, on the other hand, produces a log-cabin-ish look.  The differences don't stop there.  The WI square is much more loosely woven and you can clearly see the difference between the blue and the white backgrounds through it.  The background change isn't as noticeable on the C square, because it's woven on the bias, continuously and so contracts as soon as it's removed from the loom. 

Back when I frequented the Tri-Loom group there was a woman who actually space dyed "sunset" yarn so that weaving continuously would produce a triangle with a yellow bottom point that faded up through oranges and reds to purples and deep, deep blue at the hypotenuse.  Others were experimenting with math to place specific colors in specific places on the piece based on the size of the loom and the length of the color repeat.


If the squares above had been woven in 100% wool or Cotton, they could be fulled and both would be usable cloth.  The WI would be a more stable square while the C square would be more stretchy, but both could be joined to similarly woven squares to make a larger piece of cloth..

So, if you've suddenly discovered that you're spinning too fast for your knitting needles this may be a way to test the weaving waters before you plunk down $200 to $2,000 for a traditional loom.  If you want to learn more about these types of looms drop by Hazel Rose's website or Google "small looms."