It’s been an exciting few days at Kitchener Bitch headquarters. Namely, I have a new toy: the Ashford Knitter’s Loom - a 2-foot portable rigid heddle loom designed, I think, for weaving novices such as myself. I picked it up at Loopy after having eyed it in the back room for months.

The first thing I have to say is that I love it. Weaving is as hypnotic as knitting, and possibly more so. It’s immensely satisfying to weave the shuttle through the warp and then gently nudge the weft yarn into position with the beater, over and over again in a single rythmic movement. There’s Zen to be found there, in the same way that there’s Zen to be found in making the endless loops of the knitted stitch. It’s also gratifyingly fast. In just a couple of hours, i’d made a charmingly primitive ugly child’s scarf:

I’m on to my next weaving project - a see-through shawl made of widely spaced laceweight Fleece Artist mohair boucle.  I love the way it’s turning out, although I like even more the way the shawl looks when it’s wrapped around itself at the front of the loom - if I’d made it four times as thick, it would be like a lovely Chanel boucle.  I’ll have to invest in a finer reed and in a hell of a lot more mohair for that.

In other adventures, I have a bunch of finished objects to come (as soon as I can get pics) and some more exciting patterns on the way!  Next up - 40s lace gloves…