Mainly clear. Low 52F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph..

Mainly clear. Low 52F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph.

Oct. 3-9 is National Spinning and Weaving Week. You can take a class to learn/improve your skills (check with your local fiber store regarding classes). There are also different online websites that offer different weaving or spinning classes for a fee. Here are a few fun facts and information about the arts of weaving and spinning.

Simply put, spinning is the art of taking loose strands of plant/animal fiber, twisting the fibers together, and creating a thread or strand of yarn. The fiber can be used as a single strand or spun together (called plying) to create a thicker kind of fiber. These strands of fibers spun together create yarn/thread, which in turn are used to make items such as cloth, rope or rugs.

One of the most famous weavers was a Navajo woman named Daisy Taugelchee (1909-1990). She is credited with creating some of the most finely woven tapestries throughout history, weaving threads of over 110 wefts per inch of cloth. (The weft is the woven part of a cloth that is made side to side — think east to west and vice versa.) Every inch of cloth contained 110 threads of fiber. So, for a 12-inch-wide piece of cloth, there were over 1,300 threads across the width of fabric.

From my research, it is said that spinning was first, for without spinning, you wouldn’t have the threads/yarn to weave said cloth.

Looms come in different sizes and styles, but all looms use the process of weaving by taking yarn, thread or fabric strips and making them into a piece of cloth. A weaver will “warp the loom” first — that is place threads onto the loom going up and down (think north and south directions). The weft is the thread/yarn/fabric strips that are woven between the warp threads on the loom, thus creating fabric.

A tapestry loom is one of the simplest styles of looms. Sometimes known as a frame loom, this type of loom has limitations on the size of the woven fabric due to the limited size of the frame.

Inkle looms are the type of loom used to weave small widths of fabrics in a desired length. The loom is also a good beginner’s loom and can be used to create items such as a purse strap, belts or a guitar strap.

Rigid-heddle looms are also a good starter loom for beginning fibers artists. There is a fixed heddle; that is the part where the warp threads are fed through in a specific color sequence. A shuttle containing the weft threads is slid between the warp threads on the loom.

Table looms and floor looms are somewhat more complex and can have four or eight different reeds on the loom. The reeds are controlled by lifting certain levers which lift certain threads that are fed through the heddles, in a specific number sequence to produce the desired pattern on the fabric. Floor looms are large stationary looms, used for making heavier items (such as denim throw rugs). Lifting and lowering the different reeds on a floor loom is done with foot pedals instead of smaller levers (that are used on a table loom).

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