Wow, I am so very in love with weaving.

It took me about nine hours to weave a test scarf, from setting up the loom up, warping it, and the actual weaving process, to cutting it off and finishing the edges.

Oh, it is a horrendous scarf. It is too long, and the edges are ragged, and I am not as fond of the colours as I was when I bought the thread (although to cut myself some slack, apart from the white, I got to choose between these blues and a ball of pinks, so I took the lesser of two evils; it’s not like I went looking for this colour) or of how it striped. Laid out to block, it looks like a priest’s stole or something.

But oh, the process. I adore it. It’s quick, and tangible results are there, right there in front of you. And there’s still an element of mystery, because when you take it off the tensioned loom the fabric changes, and some patterns will change, too. And really, you only get to see about six inches of what you’re weaving at one time, so the final reveal is exciting.

I taught myself how to read patterns during a break. And I have chosen a pattern to try, and I will do a real swatch this time, and no, I will not tell you what it is, because Ceri and Scott have formally announced that they are expecting their first baby in September, and so I am going to Make Something.

So! Here’s what things looked like at the end.

Look how even this selvage is! I am very pleased. Of course, that’s about five inches of a six-foot-long scarf. And only one side. Still, I like to think Granddad would have nodded at this bit and deemed it acceptable:

Here’s the woven fabric, all rolled up on the front beam:

And this is the top view of what it looked like after all the warp had been wound forward as far as it would go and there was only another fourish inches left to weave (you can see that one blank line where I missed a dent in the reed; it makes me wish I’d missed more here and there, so I could have called it a feature instead of a mistake):

Then I had to hemstitch the ends so they wouldn’t fall apart when I cut the scarf off the loom:

And tie knots in the warp threads to make fringe, which is another way to seal the weave from unravelling. Voila, the end of a scarf! Don’t worry, these fringed warp ends were trimmed to a more sensible length:

The whole thing, taken off the loom, but before washing and blocking:

And now, in all its (questionable) glory, my very first bit of woven anything, AKA the Mile-Long Scarf:

Next? Spinning yarn specifically to be used in a weaving project. I’m thinking browns; I have that woollen-spun chocolate Coopworth around here somewhere…

Stats:

18 epi finished fabric
Five inches wide, one mile six feet long
Approximately 186 yards of warp, 230 yards of weft (I should check this against actual formulas)