Weave with a Hand-Built Loom

Enlarge Image Image Gallery 1.Michelle warping her homemade frame. 2.The shed stick picks up every other strip on a prefab frame and separates them to form the ""shed."" 3.Judy and Michelle ru.n the shuttle throw the warp.

Handworks

Michelle Silver picks up the weaving habit again and discovers a new world beyond the grammar-school pot holder.

Weaving, the interlacing of two materials, is one of the oldest skills in the world. It's done by holding one set of parallel threads so that you can cross a second set of threads over and under the first set to form a fabric.

How much time and money you spend is entirely up to you. As a beginner, I made my own frame loom, bought some cheap yarn, and was on my way for under $10.

Professionals may spend as much as $3000 on a loom, an apparatus that speeds up the over-and-under process by raising the preselected threads. Exotic mohair and silk yarns can cost as much as $10 an ounce. There is even a computer program now, called Combby 8, that allows you to design your own pattern and transmit it to your loom; it will automatically pick up all of the threads you selected for your individual pattern.

"Have you ever woven before?" Judy Steinkoenig asks. She's the co-owner of a local weaving shop and my instructor.

Sure I'd woven. There was the set of square pot holders I made in grade school. And shortly thereafter, I bought myself a weaving kit complete with fabric ties and plastic, red loom. It wasn't long before I filled the kitchen with a colorful assortment of more useless pot holders. Within a few weeks, Mom ceased being impressed, and I didn't know what else to make, so I threw away the loom and retired early.

Judy swears she never once made a pot holder. In fact, she never even tried weaving until she was married and home rais ing her one-year-old son. She was in dire need of a hobby when she discovered a local weaving course.

"I had tried pottery and cross-stitching, but everything called for specific patterns," Judy says. "My grandmother tried to teach me to knit and ended up telling me I was hopeless. I just didn't understand it and there was no freedom in it for me. Weaving was a craft I understood, and I found I could make wonderful things."

Her favorite advice is: "Be a kid. A lot of adults will ask me how their projects are going to turn out if they do such and such. I'll tell them I don't know, try it; find out. Kids are much more willing to experiment. They'll change their weaving patterns all the time, and they're not as tough on themselves when they make mistakes."