My Pinterest Board of Creative Skills to Learn has a photo of the Cricket Loom on it.  I’ve been admiring this loom for several years and wanted to add weaving to my creative activities.  Finally, I was able to take a class at the Knitty Gitty  last week.  It was actually two classes.  The first one got me started and then I purchased my loom and brought it home to weave my scarf during the week.  The second class taught me to take the finished scarf off the loom and also how to start my next project.

I thoroughly enjoyed this class and the instructor was a delight.

So here’s a few photos of my scarf along the way.  I started with Cascade Yarns Ultra Pima Cotton in Yellow for the warp (Lots of new vocabulary to learn when weaving).  Those are the yellow yarns that are vertical.  Getting those threads in place and tying them properly was the most difficult part of the process.

 

The dark green thread that you see is the starter yarn not part of the finished scarf.  For the weft (Another new word for me, those are the horizontal threads that are woven.) I used Cascade Yarns Ultra Pima Paints in lovely shades of yellow, greens, and teals.  The scarf is rather long so I used the entire skein of each.

Next thing to learn is the hem stitch.  Since I sew, I refer to it as a blanket stitch although for some reason, I couldn’t seem to do two stitches alike.  I’ll need more practice.

Then it was smooth sailing.  I love the Cricket Loom.  Just move the heddle (Yup, another new word) and the vertical yarn separates so that the horizontal yarn can just slide through.

The process is very relaxing and the fabric grows at a nice pace.  Faster than my knitting.  I did have some trouble finding a comfortable place to weave.  There is a stand for this loom and that is going to be my next purchase.  Besides, I’m running out of table top room in my home studio.

And so 7 days later, I returned to class and my instructor showed me how to complete my scarf and get it off the loom.  Much easier than getting it started.  Here is my finished scarf!

And so now I’ve learned a new skill and I’m excited about the new challenges ahead.  There’s books to read, videos to watch, Ravelry groups to join and lots of ideas in my head for woven items.  Here’s the start of my second project.  A simple mat using some yarn that I was going to use to knit dishcloths.  It is going to be a good texture for place mats.

I’d love to know what creative skills you still would like to try.  If you take a peek at my Pinterest Board, you’ll see that I still want to try Bobbin Lace and several other activities.