Hand Weaving on a Brinkley Loom

This week I was able to set up my new Brinkley loom, and weave my first solo piece.  I have blogged about this loom before, when I did a weaving workshop with Eve Studd at Cornhill Crafts.  I fell in love with the loom then, and now I have my own.

The beauty of this loom lies in its simplicity.  It consists of a beech wood frame, and a special finned heddle that also acts as the beater.  It is warped by placing a broom handle through 2 holes in the frame, balancing it across two chair backs, tying on the warp thread, and rotating the frame until you have the desired number of warp threads.  The special heddle is then placed into the frame, between the top and bottom threads.  Each top thread has a place in the fins on the heddle, and you rotate the heddle towards yourself to change the shed.  The weft can be almost any material you want, including yarn, unspun wool fleece, and even twigs.

 

I used double knitting yarn in the warp, and chunky weight knitting yarn in the weft.  This piece is just over 5 foot long.  I plaited the cut ends of the warp threads to finish it off.  I'm keeping this one for myself, as a scarf.  I'm planning lots more pieces to use up my yarn stash, give as gifts, and incorporate into my C&G level 2 course work.