Uh oh...new hobby

When my husband asked for ideas for our anniversary, I first suggested that we get a gift that both of us could use. Being that it was our anniversary, I didn't want to suggest something for me. Well, he had a different idea. He wanted to get parts for his mountain bike. So, I thought about it and said that I wanted a loom. That was about 3 weeks ago. I spent a week looking at various looms online and reading reviews. I settled on the Schacht Cricket loom. It's small, not too expensive, and looks easy to use.

It arrived a few days after our anniversary, but I jumped in and started weaving away. My first attempt was hideous. I almost didn't take a picture of it. But I did anyways to show my progress. It's amazing how my first scarf looks compared to my 4th. Yes, I wove 4 scarves in 3 days. My husband and mom were laughing at me, but I don't care. Here's the first scarf. I used the Wool-ease yarn that came with the loom and followed their instructions. As you can see from the close-up, the edges are too loose.

These two were woven with leftover Wool-ease that I had in my stash. At this point, I just wanted to practice and wasn't really picky about colors. The one on the left is #2 and you can see the edge is a little better. The green and beige is #3 and is much improved over the natural colored scarf.

I'm really happy with how the 4th scarf turned out. I'd actually wear this one. ;-) I had left over red and black Patons Merino wool from the pirate bag that I knit a few years ago. I wasn't sure if I had enough, but tried it anyways. I ran out of weft yarn before the warp and ended up cutting off a lot at the end.

I wasn't sure how to do the weft color changes. In the previous scarves, I overlapped ends when I ran out of weft and needed more. I can see those overlaps in the finished scarf and didn't like how they looked. In this one, I left long loops at the edge where I changed colors, cut those, and wove them in after the scarf was finished. It took a loooong time to do, but I like how you can't see them at all now.

I've already ordered parts for the loom so I can weave thinner yarn. I have a lot of fingering weight yarn and leftovers too that I think would make great scarves.