Tag: rigid heddle loom

Rya weave cushion completed

On By vikkihaffendenIn British wool, craft, creativity, fibre, weaving, Wool, Woven textilesLeave a comment

Although it’s taken me a while I have finally finished this cushion.

Front of the cushion. A tufted chequer board that is very tactile and squishy.

The front is Rya tufted and woven with a British wool rug yarn on a linen/cotton warp. The black tufts are Shetland staples and the cream is a mixture of Devon/Dorset staples. Although it’s not that clear in the photo, the squares are reversed; black edging with a cream centre and cream edging with a black centre.

The reverse of the cushion is a faux waffle weave in the same rug yarn that underlies the Rya tufts. Because my rigid heddle loom is only a 20 inch wide, the cushion is composed of four pieces.

I took the opportunity to insert a zip in the centre back seam.

Instead of feathers or polyester wadding, the cushion is filled with a pad of lofty carded wool fleece. I will use this cushion to make my chair extra comfortable whilst spinning at my wheel.

Another addiction: weaving on a rigid heddle loom

On By vikkihaffendenIn Textiles, Uncategorized, Woven textiles, yarnLeave a comment

I haven’t really woven on a loom since I was a student at college. I have a Spears toy loom which I used for one project but the width is limited and the heddle is quite fiddly to work with. What I really wanted to do was to find a technique that uses up my small bits of handspun yarn my experiments and my texted handspun that I don’t think looks very good in knitting.

The Spears loom is actually quite good, and is very much like using a rigid heddle loom but with the shortcomings mentioned earlier. So I was really pleased when a friend offered to lend me 15 inch rigid heddle loom that she had in her attic. This now gives me the extra width and also the heddle is much easier to manipulate.

And so my weaving adventure has begun. Kindly she put a viscose thread warp on it for me to get me going and I’ve used this to practise using some acrylic DK yarn I had to hand.

Playing with acrylic yarn to get the feel of the loom.
My first handspun effort