Oooo! Look what @Admin gave us! Every craft now has a tools section. Let’s face it, weavers have the tools! Spinning wheels are lovely. Knitting needles are so pointy. But looms, people. LOOMS!! Not to mention shuttles, reeds, heddles, forks, battens, warping boards, warping reels, tension boxes, compu-dobbies and countless other toys. Let’s talk tools!
Looms… Big Sis sets the bar high for accumulation and I lost count at 20 (of course different gauges/types), the shuttles (stick, boat, and ski/rag), the beaters…
I love the makers and the woods available. The grains! The colors! (I have a few “little man” pieces that I’m fond of and some George pieces as well)
Mass production has it’s place, but hand made tools for hand made projects…
Weaving is the perfect craft for tool junkies. Looms are the ultimate, but I find myself haunting Home Depot and Harbor Freight looking for useful “stuff”.
What are your favorite things to use for warp separators? I once had a huge roll of the corrugated stuff, but it has been divided so many times, I find I don’t have the right size for my 24” loom. Going to use poster board as a temporary measure. If it works out okay, that might be the end of it, but if not, I’d like some backup options.
For my rigid heddle looms and table looms - actually for the Wolf Pup, too, I prefer vinyl mini-blind slats. I remove them from the blind header and cut them the same length as my apron rods. I put one or two in per revolution as I’m beaming the warp. You want the cheap ones here, not the really nice ones and definitely not aluminum. These guys last forever - some of mine even have cat teeth marks on the ends, but they still keep going. They won’t stand up to the extreme tension on the biggest looms. My two largest looms have sectional warp beams which take care of themselves. For the other two, I use wooden trim slats that George cuts and sands for me. We buy it in 8-foot lengths and he cuts it up into the lengths of my apron rods.
Thanks, @DebbiRYarn, I have heard of this but not tried it. May have to invest in a cheap blind. The poster board works okay - that is what is used to separate the pre wound Saori warps I get. Taming new poster board… that may be tricky.
One thing to watch out for. Some of my students figured that they could get used mini-blinds at Goodwill or some such. The problem with those is that they’ve typically been exposed to UV and are very brittle. That’s not what you want! The new ones are inexpensive and work great!
Any used ones I have seen look pretty rough! I would definitely go for new.
I got a roll of wallpaper at a second hand shop years back. Just wide enough for my looms. I expect to get at least another five years of use our of it. Comes to a cost 20 cents are year. One of the cheapest tools I have.
I use wallpaper for my cricket. For my Ashford RH and my Artisat I use reed beach mats. I really like them but could not find a new one this summer. Dollar stores used to have them but not this year. I have 3 and one is getting funky on the end.
@Greennana , I have heard wallpaper is good! You were fortunate to find some at such a good price!
@Bettymo, I have in one of my books somewhere a pattern to weaving your own bamboo mat. It would be much better to find one already made. Are they pretty sturdy? It sounds like maybe you need to replace them occasionally.
They are really sturdy and pretty long. I have had mine for a while and the only area they are getting loose is at the very end. I can use one for a 3 yard warp. I have 3. I don’t think I’ll weave one but at least we know we can. I posted a pic over in the overshot weave along. I think you can see the mat there.
I bought a school project display board and cut it into 1.5 inch strips to use for warping sticks
Well, here are some of my looms.
SOME of them? LOL. They are beautiful. Really like your bench pad. Great idea.
Thank you for your comments about the benchpad.
Actually, this pic shows most of my looms - I also have a tiny little Katie loom.
I also have several - 2 rigid heddle 2 inkles (gifted 1 inkle to a friend yesterday so there were 3) 1 floor loom, 4 tapestry looms, and a pot holder loom. Yours in the photo are just so grand and lovely I reacted thinking there must be at least 2 more of them cropped out of the picture. lol. Thanks so much for sharing.
Who is the big one in the back? I want to say a Glimakra, but I don’t think so.
Hello, DebbiRYarn.
The big one at the back is a Varpapuu 8 shaft floor loom. Bit of a beast and, truth be told, rather too big for me (I’m short). Still, I’m using it. In fact, I’ve just taken off 6-shaft waffle handtowels. Big looms we have in abundance in South Africa!