Kelly Casanova Weaving Lessons

toy loom

I wove a blanket on a toy loom!

by 8 Comments

I’ve been weaving on my toy loom for some time now and thought it was a good time to challenge myself (and the loom!) to see what we could do together.

I love to encourage weavers of all levels and circumstances to think outside the box when it comes to weaving and to make the most of what you have, what is available to you or what you can afford.

I also wanted to prove to those who might say “you can’t really weave fabric on a toy loom” that you definitely can! And what better way to do that than to show you how to produce something rather large from something rather small.

I have more resources available on this toy loom. In this article and videos I unbox and set up the loom, give my first impressions and then do some replacements to improve it. Then I warp it myself rather than using the pre-made warp plus show you some things you can do with the loom, including pick up.

Now, onto the lap blanket project!

My idea was to weave strips of fabric to join together later. The weaving width for the toy loom is around 6″ and once you allow for draw in and shrinkage, the actual panel width is even less than that.

I wasn’t sure what length of warp this little loom could handle, so that part was a bit experimental. I’m pleased to say that it handled the 83″ of warp length very nicely.

My plan was to direct warp the loom by clamping the loom to one end of the table with spring clamps and achieving the length of warp I desired by using the pegs on my warping board (also known as hybrid warping).

I used an Aran weight (Australian 10 ply) wool and doubled it because the heddles that are built into the toy loom are sett at about 5 ends per inch – that is quite an open sett.

I used Bendigo Woollen Mills luxury 10 ply in Coastal Blue and Shadow. I used 2 balls in each colour (they are large, 200gram balls).

For and quick and easy doubling of the warp I simply took one loop through every hole and every slot using my double ended threading hook so that the loom width was fully warped.

For the blanket, I did a total of 4 separate warps for 4 panel pieces. Each panel piece would then be divided in half to make a total of 8 panel pieces.

I wanted to have stripes on my blanket, so for warps 1 and 3 I warped with the lighter coloured wool and used the darker colour for weft. For warps 2 and 4 I warped with the darker colour and used the lighter colour for weft.

You might think it fairly time consuming to work with 4 separate warps but with the small size of the loom and the ability to direct warp, it did not take long each time. I also skipped the threading step by warping in every hole and slot, so that was a definite time saver too.

Once I had all of my panels woven I wet finished them (secured the raw ends first by serging) and allowed to dry completely, then pressed on the wool setting.

When I laid the panels out in order to check the look and sizing, some of the panels were shorter, some were longer so I had to cut and serge to ensure the sides would be uniform.

My next job was to stitch the panels together. I decided to do this by hand using mattress stitch, again because I know not everyone has a sewing machine and so I wanted to show an alternative. I have a video tutorial on how to do mattress stitch here.

I used my much loved bent tip tapestry needle, which makes this type of stitching so much easier. The stitching by hand does take time but I wanted to ensure that my stitching was very neat and a bit of a feature on the blanket.

To finish off I could have hemmed the serged sides of the blanket by hand or on my sewing machine but I wanted to give it just that little extra bit of oomph to make it special.

I decided on a single crochet border all the way around the edges of the blanket. I used the darker yarn to complete this and won a game (only just!) of yarn chicken with the very last of my dark blue wool.

The total blanket used almost 600 metres of each yarn colour for a total of 1200 metres of yarn.

I hope that by sharing this project I have inspired you to consider what you might be able to do in the wonderful world of weaving!

If you would like to see the video that goes with this article, please visit my Youtube channel:

*This post contains affiliate links. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.

Until next time…

Happy Weaving!

I bought a toy loom! Was it worth it?

by 5 Comments

Recently I purchased a Lavievert Toy Weaving Loom.

My motivation for doing so was twofold – firstly, I was curious and thought it might be a fun experience and secondly, I’m always on the lookout for ways of advising newer weavers on ways that they can get into weaving more economically.

*This post contains affiliate links. For further information, please see my disclosure policy.

Naturally, before I recommend any product I need to first use it and review it myself!

The only other toy or children’s loom I’ve used is a very cheap and basic frame loom, so this loom from Lavievert seemed quite a step up and more similar to a rigid heddle loom.

This loom is very small, compact and lightweight. The initial setup couldn’t really be easier – it comes pre-warped and simply unfolds and then is held in place by a couple of screws.

It also comes with 3 balls of acrylic yarn, 3 little stick shuttles (already loaded!) and a very basic instructions booklet. The booklet only really tells you how to unfold the loom, start weaving and advance your warp – there are no instructions for future warping, which could have been a useful addition to new weavers!

It is made of a lightweight wood, has 2 wooden heddles and wooden beater, and the warp is released and advanced by manually moving the back or front roller. A piece of wood, along with a cog hold the tension. These cogs slip very easily, so it can be difficult to achieve a decent tension, though this does seem to improve as you weave and advance the warp.

The heddles are similar to a rigid heddle, in that they have holes and slots. For the warp that came on the loom, they had it threaded through the holes on both heddles. The heddles are operated by rotating the top beam that both heddles are tied to, which causes the heddles to alternate in rising and lowering, providing two sheds to weave in and producing a plain weave fabric.

Upon measuring these heddles, I found that they are sized at 5 dents per inch – pretty wide apart for such a thin warp. So, when you weave, you get quite a weft faced fabric and it’s better to beat gently to avoid the fabric being too dense (unless of course, you really want a weft faced fabric).

The most frustrating aspect to using this loom was the tension. The warp that came on the loom was very loose in some sections. It seems that the loom is probably not strong enough to hold really good tension but I want to experiment with this further in the future by warping it myself.

The maximum weaving width is around 5.5″, so definitely only a small item loom – again, great for kids who might want to weave doll’s blankets or squares to sew together to make a larger item. Some adult weavers have also told me that they use this loom for sampling for larger projects.

While I found this a fun little loom to weave on, there is definitely a lot of room for improvement! My plan to move forward with it is to re-warp it with a thicker yarn, possibly thread the heddles differently and then to play around with pick up sticks to increase the shaft possibilities.

What I would recommend though, is that if you are serious about getting into weaving, save up the extra money to buy a quality loom. Something like the Ashford Sampleit is a really great place to start, and you won’t have to worry about not achieving good tension or possibly breaking parts.

If you would like to see me unpacking, setting up and weaving on this toy loom, watch this video:

Since writing this article I have used this toy loom more extensively. My experiments lead me to replace some parts of the loom, re-warp the loom and weave some pick up on it. To learn more about that, please see this video:

Until next time…

Happy Weaving!