Weaving in Tucson - rigid heddle

I’ve looked forward to weaving with the grandgirls on the rigid heddle loom since before I bought it. I purchased a purple acrylic yarn at JoAnn’s for the warp and used an acrylic rainbow yarn I had on hand for the weft. I taught them every step of the process from warping through creating the tassels. Ada did most of the warping and together they did most of the weaving and lots of the rest. I was really impressed with how quickly they picked it up and how nice their edges were.

Weaving in Tucson - floor loom

I had planned to just take my Schacht Flip rigid heddle loom to Tucson but a lovely 1975 Harrisville loom, 22" width, showed up in the Harrisville facebook group right before we headed south and I bought it. I decided that the rigid heddle loom would be busy the whole time with the scarves we had planned for the grandgirls to make and this gave me the opportunity to weave, too.

I chose a variegated acrylic yarn that I had seen in the rigid heddle facebook group and used the warping board that came with the loom to warp on a width I thought would work for a narrowish shawl/widish scarf for travel. I just used a tabby (straight weave) and let the colors do the work.

I was told the loom came with 10 and 12 dent reeds but didn't check (lesson learned). I warped and threaded what I thought we'd be 15", then discovered it was an 8 dent reed which made it closer to 20". I decided to remove the extra from each side to center the color pattern; I pulled them off the fabric bean and out of the reed and heddles and wound them up occasionally as they hung off the warp beam. I plan to use them on a future project. 

Also, the length proved too long for my taste so I ended up with a scarf and a table runner.