Finally able to do things again!

 Finally!  Off the crutches and able to put full weight on my leg.   When you can't put your weight on your leg, you can hardly do anything.   Plus, the other restrictions like not bending the leg more than 90 degrees, no twisting etc, are gone, so I can slowly return to normal activities.  Just before they were lifted though, I was unable to weave, and spin.  Cooking was difficult and I couldn't even practice the banjo unless someone brought it to me.   However, I got a somewhat harebrained idea to warp up the rigid heddle loom.   I figured I could do it slowly, with a simple project and weaving, would be no issue.

Hubby moved the loom so it was accessible.   Then, after fishing through my Rigid Heddle Project yarn bin, I realized that I didn't really have any yarn for a project, that didn't need dyeing.   So here's the harebrained part.   I had some of the yarn I use for blankets that was accessible.  That really means I hadn't put it away before the surgery.   It's a lovely pink colour, like a Madder exhaust dye.   I decided to make a blanket.   I'd been planning on trying double weave on the rigid heddle loom and had the second reed for the correct set.  Instead of making a blanket in two parts and sewing it together (which would have been fast, efficient and smart!), I warped the rigid heddle loom for double weave.

Setting up the loom for double weave isn't difficult, just a bit fussy.  With a rigid heddle reed, you have holes and slots.  The threads in the slots are static, while the threads in the holes do all the work, moving up and down.  With two reeds, you thread the first one normally, starting with a thread in a hole, plus you run the two threads for the second reed through the slots.   The the second reed, you thread with the two extra threads, starting with the slot and run the two threads from the first reed through the slot.  Much less complicated to just do it than try to explain.  I had this crazy idea to make it a plaid as I have some lovely burgundy wool, which looked great with the pink.   I vetoed this idea, because I was direct warping using my cane ( not fully transitioned from crutches, but desperate) and still couldn't bend to pick up the inevitable dropped threads.  So, single colour warp it was, just to show that I had some common sense.

Because I kind of overdid it by winding the warp in one day, I took two days to wind the warp on, thread the reeds, tension and tie it off.  That was the easy part.  Then I had to run two pick up sticks to create two sheds that can't be done with the reeds.   However, I didn't have any pick up sticks the right size.  The project in the reed is 25 inches wide and I have a single pick up stick that is 15 inches long.  Sigh...   I used a 30 inch stick shuttle for one pick up stick and then had to wait almost a week before I could get  to the big box store to pick up a piece of 1/4 in oak 1 3/8 wide to make another pick up stick.  It's still not a pick up stick, but it's working admirably for creating the extra shed.   

There are specific steps you need to take to set up double weave on the rigid heddle, like on any loom.  You need to get two threads set for the top layer and two for the bottom.   I mixed up the labelling on both the pick up sticks and reeds, which made for some experimenting until I figured that out.  Then my instructions worked perfectly.   The first three steps and sheds work well.  The fourth is a bit tricky as the yarn is a bit sticky and the last step/shed is on the bottom.   So it's a small shed and I have to run through and separate it with my fingers before I can run the shuttle through.

I've woven the header and it's two separate layers.   My procedure works perfectly, now that I know that both pick up stick A and pick up stick B, and reed 1 and reed 2 are both the opposite of what I thought they were.

It's going to take longer than I planned to weave it off.  I had this crazy idea that it would be only a little bit slower than on my floor loom.   Nope, it's going to be much slower as the rigid heddle loom isn't really designed for this.  The sheds are smaller and you can't clear the shed as well with the beater - ha! - since there isn't a beater, just the reed.   Still, even if I can get a few inches a day woven off, it shouldn't take too many months.

For those of you who aren't really interested in weaving and stuck through the post, here is a photo of the
ginger kitties synchronized sleeping.  They were in my spot on the couch and refused to move :)