Finally Weaving!!

Here is my very first weaving project: It is a denim rag rug in a twill pattern. This is being done on my Varpapuu Countermarche loom. The warp was already on it when I bought the loom, but I redid the warp (as a learning process).

I am using Laila Lundell's Big Book of Weaving to guide me through the process.

I really got very tired of crawling inside the loom to play with the treadle tie ups, so I changed it, with my hubby's help - he made what I needed and it works wonderfully. Now when I change the tie up, I just go around to the back of the loom and make the changes in the TexSolv cord on the tie up board at the back. It cost me a few dollars, but to take the hassle away made it worth it.

The following is showing the box at the back. Each group of 2 vertical rows represents a treadle. The left vertical row in each group of two vertical rows are for the top lamm adjustments and the right vertical row are for making changes to the lower lamms. The horizontal rows represent the harnesses. The wooden pegs just hold the unused cords so they don't slip out the back of the board. The sticks are old knitting needles being used to hold the treadle tie up for the rug I am doing.

I'm going to label the board and in another post I will show a different picture which should show things more clearly.

Another change I made to the loom is on the warping beam. It is a 1" sectional beam, but the sections are made up with sharp pointy nails. Everytime I crawled in the loom I was scratched & jabbed by the sharp nails. I kept looking at it and kept thinking about the problem and came up with the idea of vinyl tubing cut to bend over two nails. My hubby and I went off to the local farm store and bought ? metres of tubing. He kindly cut and installed it all for me over a couple of days when I was working. It works just perfectly.

Here is a view showing the treadles with the guides for the TexSolv cord as seen from the front of the loom.

Varpapuu Countermarche.
Denim Rag Rug.