"My Ashford 24" Table Loom!!!!"

I'd ordered my new 24", 8 shaft, Ashford Table loom, with Stand, from Susan's Fiber Shop, in Columbus, WI, and it arrived late Thursday afternoon!!! I immediately began my adventure into assembling them by opening and unpacking the stand first. Don, of course, caught this happy moment. It was very well packed and everything that was supposed to be in the box, WAS in the box. ;)

The direction booklet was VERY well illustrated. The stand includes a 4 treadle kit, but I chose not to use those parts, not wanting to have it work with anything but the top levers. The treadles may work for a shorter person, but for someone my height, they would not be conducive to a comfortable weaving experience.

Here is the box unpacked with parts laid out for assembly.

In very little time, due to excellently illustrated directions, the stand was assembled. I later reversed the 2 side shelves so that the closed end was in the back. It was easily done after assembly by removing 2 screws, reversing the shelf, then replacing the screws once again. It was done in a matter of minutes.

Then began the unpacking of the loom itself.

Once again, everything needed was neatly packed and in the box. Here are all of the parts prior to assembly.

The main frame is easily assembled (great illustrations!). Hints, such as using candle wax on each screw prior to insertion, made the job easier, too.

The castle pieces assembled.....

Frame and castle assembled........

The "in-between step" not photographed, was the assembly of the 8 shafts. It, too, was an easy job. 16 screws were inserted into the 16 tops of the wooden end pieces, Texsolv heddles were slid onto top and bottom shaft rods, which were then inserted into the wooden end pieces, screw side up. ;) The small screws are what were soon to attach the Texsolv cord around, after being threaded through the upper castle, and attached to the front levers by threading the cord through the castle front. After the Texsolv cords were all attached, then it was a simple process of adjusting the height of each shaft, using the holes in the Texsolv cordage.

Lastly, the hanging beater was attached and the loom was completely assembled. Admittedly, I did make a few changes on the front and back cloth rods/beams. I didn't want to use the string provided, so instead, I used some extra Texsolv cord that I had previously bought, to attach the cloth rods to the cloth beams. I made further alterations with those, after weaving a scarf, which I think will make it work better for me. I'll show what I did in tomorrows post.

I also wanted to show a photo of just how nicely the loom and stand fold up for storage. The loom is supposed to fold this nicely with a weaving project on it, too. Due to the size and amount of various fiber equipment in my fiber room, I will definitely have an opinion on that soon. ;)

Tomorrow: My first sock yarn scarf.

"Rayon Chenille Scarf Completed......"

I was amazed at how quickly I was able to finish weaving the rayon chenille scarf once I got used to weaving such a narrow piece.....AND, once I figured out the "almost no pressure" beating of the weft. ;) It was similar to gaining a rhythm when doing anything repetitive.......the weaving motions became smoother and gained speed.

I bought this "Fringe Twister" when I was at Susan's Fiber Shop last week. If you recall, I'd asked her about weaving with chenille....the reason I came home and tried it, but I also asked about twisted fringe that I had seen on many scarves when looking at them at Sheep and Wool Festival. I'd seen these little gadgets in catalogs and online before, but didn't know how they worked. I added to my weaving equipment and bought one...... ;)

It really is quite easy to work with.....although, it does take a few minutes of "fussing" with it to see that each warp thread needs to be very close to the same tension as the others in the group to be twisted. Twisting the group by turning the "crank" to the right, until the group is twisted sufficiently, each warp thread is then held onto and gathered into the group as it is released from the alligator clip. The group is then smoothed out while holding onto the warp threads (sometimes there are kinks in a thread and you want them all to be even). When all are smooth, the group is then twisted in reverse (to the right), which the warp threads will want to do naturally, but it doesn't hurt to help control them......I found that part of the learning experience quite quickly....as in the first attempt. ;)

As with weaving the scarf.....the more twisted fringe I did, the faster the process went.

Don loves to take photos from different angles.......which I truly do appreciate, as the different views may allow the viewer to have more "ah ha!" moments visually.

The finished chenille scarf. After completing the "twisted fringe", I wet finished it by washing it in a load of towels. I also put it into the dryer as well, with the load of towels (I do the same with the rayon chenille towels I wove for our hot tub use, too). The scarf came out "super soft" and "drapes" very nicely.

Some thoughts on the fringe.........I do believe I will twist them a bit more next time. When it came out of the dryer, they were not as tight or elongated as when they had gone in, but did "shake out" somewhat after the end of the scarf was briskly whipped back and forth. All in all, I'm happy with my chenille scarf experiment and look forward to adding more colors of chenille to my yarn stock. :)