Adventures in Point Twill

Back in 2019, I purchased a secondhand Kromski Harp Forte 24-inch rigid heddle loom.

I assembled it, marveled at its structure, especially after weaving on a DIY loom for over a year, and immediately got to making things complicated by weaving twill for the first time. I wove a simple 3/1 twill, with two heddles and a pick-up stick, and I have very little photographic proof of this teeny tiny project because it got ruined by a leaky bottle of sesame oil in our cross-country move.

Bummer, that. It was a cute little coaster. 

Since then, the loom has sat on a shelf or its stand for longer than I care to admit, but hardly a day has gone by that I haven't thought about weaving. We've moved twice since it came to live with me, and space was An Issue for nearly a year and a half.

But now...

I'll be honest, I really like this weaving spot.

 

Okay, okay, I did one rigid heddle project earlier this year, too.

"Yes, yes, we get it. The purple scarf is very nice." – everyone, probably

 

While I'm positively tickled about this point twill project, it took a minute to get to get here.

You might want a beverage and a comfortable chair for this one.  

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Over a month ago, I started picking through my leftovers bowl. I wanted to weave a scrappy project but was increasingly frustrated that none of the scraps seemed to go together. I pulled out most of the handspun balls, and started to see a few things coming together: dark purple, gray/pink, white/blue/purple/sparkle, blue/teal/pink, hazy black.

It looked like a reasonable amount of warp, which makes no sense because I hadn't even picked a project. What the hell is a reasonable amount of warp when you don't have a project in mind?

I dug out my warping pegs, and flipped my loom upside down on its stand to wind my warp. This is a really useful feature of many rigid heddle looms, and I'm learning to take better advantage of it rather than direct warping all the time.

I'd be lying if I told you I remembered how long the warp is. It's a good length, I think just over 3 yards? I checked when I put the pegs on the warping board, and then I didn't promptly write it down so it's gone forever.  

It wasn't enough warp width for anything more than a belt. So, I went back to the bowl and pulled out the remaining purple handspun I used for the weft in the scarf above, and a little under 40 grams of leftover blue-gray BFL/silk/cashmere sock yarn.

I got to work threading my three heddles (one on each set of heddle blocks, and one floating in the middle) according to Meilindis' blog post, took a break to make and eat dinner with my husband, and went back to it. Once things were tied on and looking even, he came in to admire my work. I told him I wasn't sure yet what I wanted to make, but that I had a pretty good length of warp—much longer than I really needed for even a scarf. I thought about table runners, placemats, etc., but he ran he hand across the newly-tensioned warp and gently mentioned that he would love a scarf—if and only if I needed a reason to weave.

I had been meaning to make him a scarf for a while now, and he had picked out some yarn, but he really seemed to like the blues and purples in this warp. I showed him the navy blue weft, and the weave structure I was planning to use, and he was thrilled.

After spacing my warp, I got started weaving a bit of tabby to even things out. It was kind of fussy, so I only wove about eight picks of it. Then I started on the real draft, and ... it wasn't any better. 

 

It was gorgeous, but I was struggling to get an even, open shed while having to hold a second heddle up or down manually and pass the shuttle through with my one free hand. Something about part of my tension was strange as well, and in a handful of the slots housing two warp ends, the yarns were fighting to pass by each other.

With just one hand to work on everything, the weaving process slowed to a crawl, and I was frustrated. So, I did what I intended to do last year. I ordered a set of double heddle blocks for the loom, and I ignored the project for a bit.

Once the heddle blocks arrived, I took the loom off its stand, laid it on the floor, and started undoing bolts. This was all well and good, except it quickly became clear to me that the double heddle block did not fit next to the single heddle block. Well, it fit, but when loaded with heddles, there was no space between them to move said heddles. I was flabbergasted, annoyed, pissed, to be honest. I spent $40 on a couple hunks of wood and couldn't even use them as intended.

Welp.

I thought about just starting over in plain weave, or powering through the project until I could find a way to alter one of the old sets of single blocks to fit over the back support beam, to allow more space between the blocks for the heddles to move. I got my hacksaw out and cut a chunk out of an old heddle block. No dice.

This was about as fun as it looks like it was.

A couple weeks went by, and I really didn't know where to begin, but I got that furrowed brow, that notion of "I'm going to figure it out or it can't be done."

I pulled the loom back off the stand and set it on my work table. I inspected where the heddles were bolted on, and the holes on the opposite side of the loom. I could rearrange the blocks, but then one set would be too far forward and impede my weaving space. 

Sigh.

I remembered reading somewhere that assembling the loom backwards could cause catastrophic failure, but... how? If this loom wasn't meant to be used forward or backward, why on earth were there reversed heddle block holes on the opposite side?

I measured the space between the two sets of holes on the opposite side. They were the same anyway; it didn't matter.

But they looked different. Why did they look different?

I thought about folding the loom up, and how the bottom support beams, where the feet attach, don't line up perfectly so that the feet don't crash into each other when the loom is folded up. 

THAT'S IT.

I measured and confirmed, the holes on the front of the loom at the same distance from each other but overall further away from the beam. What that means is that I had room to put the double heddle block near the beam, and the single heddle block in front, and everything would fit.

And so it was, and there was much rejoicing.

Look at all that space!

The rejoicing was only mildly tempered by the fact that the front of the loom was now the back of the loom, and not only did I need to turn the loom around, but I also needed to roll the entire length of the warp from the cloth beam (formerly the warp beam) to the warp beam (formerly the cloth beam), re-tie my ends with better tension, and maybe even re-thread the heddles—all three of them.

Do you see?

I wasn't going to risk losing momentum, so I stuck my earbuds in and got to work, pausing only briefly for another Cooking Together segment.

In the end, I did choose to re-thread the heddles. Some ends had gotten twisted the first time around, and I wasn't completely sure I didn't mess things up in another way. Better safe than sorry, right? Additionally, I took more care in tying on with even tension, using smaller bundles of warp ends this time around. 

 

To each heddle, its own block.

 

I spaced my warp, and I started again. This time I forgot to start with tabby weave, but paused several picks in to do my hemstitching, and it looks reasonably fine so I'm not fussing over it. I just wanted to get on with it and get going and make sure everything worked. 

And it does!

 

I'm having only very mild issues with those same few problem ends getting stuck up or down and having to manipulate them every two picks, but with both hands free it's much more pleasant, and much faster. I'm beating more evenly, leaving space for the fabric to bloom later on, and the work is so much more enjoyable.

Now I can truly say I'm absolutely thrilled to be working on this point twill scarf, and it's been great for catching up on podcasts. I'm still not very far along with it, but this weekend should give me some quality weaving time.

Kromski, you've made a very versatile loom, and I'll keep my toes crossed that the loom gods don't choose to curse me with a catastrophic failure. 

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Some of you might have noticed a new accessory in the last couple of photos. One downside(ish) to this modification is that I can't use my loom stand now unless I get longer bolts. I say (ish) because, honestly, I prefer weaving at the work table. Because of this, I needed to figure out how to hold my roll of packing paper that keeps the layers of my warp as well as my cloth separate and evenly tensioned. 

Well, lo and behold, we had a yardstick laying around that came with the house, so I tied it up to the front support beam with some scrap yarn and stuck the whole roll on it. Works like a charm, and you could just as easily use it on the stand if you were so inclined.

 

It feels great to be successfully weaving again. I'm excited to continue working on this scarf, and I hope to get some shop items on the loom shortly after it's finished. My stash is calling me to throw things together and see what happens. That's been the beauty of weaving for me. Colors play together so differently than they do in knitting or crochet. It's a whole different world.

Thanks for reading. I'll see you next time. 🍂