My husband got a loom for Christmas. It is not a huge one, but it is 32 inches wide. It is something he has wanted for decades. He was willing to give up a trip he loves in early December to cover the cost. He has had small hand looms in the past, but never one big enough to make more than a potholder or thin strap on.
He was very anxious to get it set up and use it, which we can all understand. We set it up a couple of days after Christmas. He will be using it in the living room or dining room due to logistics in the house. It was set up in the living room as due to a piece of furniture - a DVD chest he made - being displaced to the dining room from the living room so the Christmas tree would fit in the living room, so there was no room in the dining room. Due to the Christmas tree, there was not really enough room in the living room either for the loom, but there was more room than in the dining room.
The easy way to set up what is called the warp (the threads that one weaves the other threads - the weft - through) for this type of loom is to set up a short wooden dowel in a device which clamps onto a table or other flat surface. This is done so that the distance between a certain part of the loom and the dowel is the amount of warp needed to work with, plus extra for needed waste. Husband moved a coffee table out of the way (too low to use) and brought up a tray table. He set up the dowel clamp on the tray table and we went to work warping (putting the warp on) the loom. I had to help him for this part as it is easier with two people. It went surprisingly well and he was subsequently able to make a nice 2 foot long piece for a table or a bureau.
What does this have to do with organizing? I am getting to that - already there was a problem with space due to displaced furniture and Christmas tree. I would have waited until it was all cleared up a bit, but I understand him wanting to go forward right away after decades of anticipation.
After the success of the first piece he waited until the Christmas tree was down (he did encourage me a bit more than usual to get it done) and stored away before attempting a second larger piece. We started warping the loom last Sunday using the same tray table. We were not so lucky this time, perhaps because this piece was to be wider and longer and therefore pulled more on the dowel, the tray table fell over, the dowel assembly fell apart and all of the loops knotted together on the floor. We tried for some time to sort them, than gave up and cut them off the loom.
In finishing up setting the downstairs of the house back from Christmas, I then put, among other items, the DVD chest back where it belonged. He had the idea to open the front of the chest and attach the dowel to the top of it - it is a very heavy chest and could not fall over. We got about 75% of the way through the warping process and the dowel assembly fell apart and ended up back on the floor.
We were able this time to sort some of the loops apart, reattached the dowel to the DVD chest and started again. Same problem. Husband was frantic and ready to sell the loom. We managed to get the loops untangled from each other by sheer stubbornness on my part and ordered take in for dinner as it was now too late to cook.
Husband had a new idea. He brought up a foldable worktable from the basement with a long dowel which he put the through the opening of the worktable and clamped the table closed around it. We started again. Now, thinking ahead, we stopped each time we had a group of loops around the dowel and tied the loops together. This way if we had a problem, we would not lose all of the work we had down to knotting together of the loops. (All of the loops are to be knotted together anyway when they are finished.) We finally got all of the warp threads on to the loom.
After we gave up on using the tray table husband took it to use to hold the items he needed to do the warping on his end. They were loose on the table and were over and under each other. He also could not reach the table from where he was. I moved the table closer and sorted the items out a bit.
So, what have we learned about organizing from all this -
1 - Don’t rush doing things until the space you need is ready. (Much easier not to climb around Christmas decorations.
2 - Have the right equipment - until we had the right setup for the dowel we had a problem.
3 - Keep the tools you need where they can be reached and organized - the table close at hand and the items sorted for ease of access made the job much easier.
4 - If it is possible, protect the work in small groups (tying groups of thread loops together as we went in the final attempt) to prevent bigger problems.
5 - Don’t give up - persevere.
Oh, there was one other problem which arose from losing the warp so much. Yarn is sold is what is called “dye lots”. Two units of the same type of yarn in the same color might be slightly off from each other as each time a “lot”of yarn is dyed it comes out slightly different from all other “lots” of that yarn in that color. It is just that each time dyeing is done it is slightly different. So yarn companies give each “lot” a number (or letter and number combination). When we started he had enough yarn to make both the warp and the weft of the piece from the same cone of yarn. We lost yarn when we had to cut it off the loom. He no longer did. Luckily I was able to find some more of the yarn with the same dye lot marking today. So, plan ahead for the unexpected. If I had not found the matching cone of yarn today, he would have had to use a different yarn from a different “lot” for the weft (the weft is the bulk of the yarn needed). This would not have been a problem as it would have been all of the weft done with the other “lot”, but that would have left him with 2 unusable amounts of the yarn from the 2 cones. Now it matches and can be added to the started cone.
Do you have a problem with starting projects without preparing properly or without having sufficient room to work properly?
As a side followup note - today I brought the drinking glasses which I had taken out of the kitchen cabinet and I donated them to Goodwill. A job started and finished.
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