Lilly

My new Oxaback Lilla loom has arrived!  I don't think I have been as excited about anything since the arrival of Nimar (an F1 Savannah cat). 

The loom had to "acclimate" for several days before assembly so we allowed it to do that and then, finally, on Saturday we put her (now named Lilly) together.

First was the simple part... the bench!

Assembly of the frame came next.

Yes, the desk behind the loom looks as though a bomb hit it.  And it sorta did.  I had to clear everything off the floor to make room for the loom.  I have already gone through my fabric stash to weed out some donatable goods, but it appears I might have to make a second pass to make sure that everything fits better into the sewing room.  (I also need to commit that old computer and monitor to the dump at some point.)

There were a couple of moments when the directions and photos provided by the shop owner did not quite answer our construction questions, but by looking a few things up online we solved all the issues and got her together.  (For example, we weren't sure if we were supposed to use washers between the treadles, but I found directions for a similar loom that had you doing so, so we made the call and used there here in that same manner.)

Finally came the treadles, shafts and tie-up.  Initially, I installed all 8 shafts and treadles but I was having an issue getting everything lined up and balanced.  Most of my planned projects (for the time being) are 4 shaft/6 treadle patterns, so I simplified my life by removed 4 of the shafts.  After doing that the entire thing worked wonderfully.

Based on a suggestion from a blog, I chose to use Sharpie markers to color my heddles so that I can easily tell which shaft it is that I am threading.  The link to the blog is here:  http://madcitymike.blogspot.com/2011/02/warping-my-oxaback-lilla-floor-loom-for.html

Finally, I started preparing my warp.  I am using an inexpensive Lion Brand 1878 wool yarn for my initial test project.  The wool felt nicer than I expected and had about 18wpi so it was also a bit more fine than I expected. 

There were a couple of spots on the cone where the yarn was a bit ragged, but I cut out the three yards that had issues and the rest was very uniform.

I wound my warp in 3 yard bundles with 36 ends each on the warping board.  Right now I have enough chains to warp 27 inches wide, and I might wind off one more to make it 30.

Warp chains waiting for me to start warping on Thursday!