nyalisa-landale

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Low space & low budget weaving

Want to weave but don't have space for a loom? Have a few sticks and yarns but no DIY skills? Come, be tempted anyway. Weaving is a whole family of crafts, some of which don't require a loom at all.

Small-ish looms like box looms (as basic as yarn wrapped around a cardboard grocery tray), inkle looms, and rigid heddle looms exist, but I'm assuming every possible space for a box in your life is already filled. In this post we're going even smaller and cheaper. As far as possible, everything either is flat enough to stow behind/under furniture or rolls up safely into a bundle of just sticks and yarn.

Many of these crafts have some crossover - the same setup can be used for multiple styles of weaving. Most of them can be improvised at home depending on what you have on hand, or if you need to buy something there is not a huge gulf between homemade vs professional equipment. Alas I am not skilled in any of these and my descriptions will not be wholly accurate; corrections and additions welcome! If you need help, I'd only be able to tell you to seek out books and tutorials yourself, ask other weavers, and just try stuff out.

All photos included with permission. My thanks to the people allowing me to use their projects! I saw so many gorgeous and skillful projects when assembling this and I wish I could have included them all.

Fingerweaving

Projects by @kitteniestkitten (here) and @wefty-weaver (here)

Culture - I am aware of this as a Native American technique, I don't know its history with any more specific tribe.

Fabric - "Warp faced" cloth of any width, insofar as warp and weft have meaning for this craft as the weaving is on a diagonal. Often used for sashes or blankets.

Method - There is no loom! A couple sticks hold the yarns to begin with, but then it is all freehand. Starting at one corner, you use your fingers to weave a strand through the other strands, and... that's it. Very simple beginnings work up to very complex patterns that no loom is capable of. The whole project can be rolled up when not active.

Backstrap loom

Projects by @calendae-creations (here) and @weavingforlooms (here)

Culture - I am most aware of this from the Andes but I think it is much more widespread than that.

Fabric - Warp faced or balanced fabric of any width up to your own reach, suitable for blankets and clothes and many other things.

Method - You are the loom! Several horizontal rods hold and manipulate the warp threads but your body provides the tension, with the other end hooked to some furniture or around your own feet. When not in use, you can roll up all the equipment into a small bundle of yarn and rods. You can also use a backstrap loom setup for other methods like tablet weaving.

Warp weighted loom

Projects by @shadowcreepling (here) and @doctormead (here)

Culture - used by ancient Greeks among many many others.

Fabric - any kind of fabric at any size. Shadowcreepling is using a warp weighted loom for a tablet-woven band, Doctormead is probably using heddle rods to make a wider piece of cloth.

Method - the warp threads are held by a bar at the top and tensioned with weights on one end that hang down towards the floor, then the weft is woven into them with any method such as tablets, heddle rods, or by hand (if you have a lot of patience) and beaten into firm fabric at the top or bottom of the loom. Warp weighted looms can be very big, but they are simple and can also be very small and taken apart when not actively weaving.

Tablet weaving / card weaving

Projects by @damage-ko (here) and @foxease (here, hardware from CellesKit on Etsy)

Culture - found as far apart as textiles (geographically and temporally) from Byzantine Egypt and the Vikings

Fabric - a warp faced fabric with patterns made by twining warp threads around each other, usually used for strong narrow bands like collars, belts, and shoelaces.

Method - the cards hold open the shed so you can pass the weft through, then rotate the cards to advance the pattern. Many people make their own with cardboard or playing cards, or you can buy some. The rest of the weaving setup can be improvised with a backstrap (or just a shower curtain hook clipped to your trousers), a cardboard box loom, or warp weights.

Rigid heddle band weaving

Projects by @pisaracraft (here) and @crookedtines (here)

Culture - small rigid heddles like the first project have been found in Roman archaeological sites across Europe. The larger rigid heddle in the second project is being used for "baltic pickup" style designs on the band.

Fabric - can be warp faced or a balanced weave, size limited by the size of your heddle.

Method - you provide tension with any setup you please such as an inkle loom, backstrap, or warp weights. The heddle creates sheds so that you can pass weft yarn through the warp easily. Infinitely many "pick-up patterns" let you weave patterns and even words into the cloth.

Pin loom / potholder loom

Projects by @pardalote (here) and @weavingmyheartout (here)

Fabric - a small square (or rectangle or triangle) of balanced weaving, which can be used alone or patched together into larger fabrics. Pin looms are finer and suitable for many knitting/crochet yarns, potholer looms are chunkier and designed for big elastics, but the method is similar.

Method - wind yarn lengthways around one set of pins and then pull yarn widthways through these strands with a hook. Or, work at 45 degrees in continuous strand weaving! Lots of room to experiment with colour and texture. You can improvise a pin loom by cutting notches in a square of sturdy cardboard.

Needle weaving / stick weaving / peg loom

Projects by @thaylepo (here) and @pastelispunx (here)

Fabric - weft-faced fabric and rugs of any size.

Method - thread long thin warp threads through the pegs, then wind a thick weft (eg heavier yarn, sheep fleece, or long scraps of fabric) around the pegs. Push the weft down along the pegs as they fill up, so that it slides off onto the warp. The pegs can be secured in a base to make a peg loom for large projects, or just handled freely. I believe these evolved as separate crafts and the nuances are different, but the overall method is similar.

Frame loom / tapestry loom

Projects by @squeakygeeky (here) and @battlestar-gasmacktica (here)

Fabric - weft-faced or balanced fabric ideal for wall hangings and upholstery, size limited to the frame being used.

Method - (usually) thinner warp threads are wound round a frame, such as heavy cardboard with notches cut in the end, a picture frame, or a small and flat purpose-made loom. Thicker weft threads are woven in by hand using needles or just small lengths of yarn. Some people make lifelike images, others make more ordinary fabrics or geometric patterns.

Bobbin lace

Projects by @crochetpiece (here) and @noxx-notions (here)

Culture - began in renaissance Italy and spread throughout Europe, often as a cottage industry.

Fabric - balanced fabric usually made of very thin threads in freeform shapes. It's not usually considered "weaving" but the basic cloth stitch is definitely a woven fabric!

Method - each thread is wound onto a bobbin (e.g. a clothespeg) and then bobbins are crossed over each other to weave threads together. The lace is pinned to a cushion to hold everything in place while the design grows.

[nyalisa-landale]

I love my fatter cat mount!! 

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Big meow

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g'raha tia

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some of my favorite woven tapestries, by Cecilia Blomberg:

Point Defiance Steps

Mates

Rising Tides

Vashon Steps

[nyalisa-landale]

I don't know what those '90s sci Fi TV writers were putting in their shows but I wish they'd start doing it again

[nyalisa-landale]

[nyalisa-landale]

Congratulation to the white spotting tournament (cat edition) champion:

Chiyo!

A deserved win, truly exclusive pattern!

[nyalisa-landale]

Ooohhhh my god

Are you seeing this shit

[nyalisa-landale]

YUE 🌙 requested by @undeciria and anon

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fracture

[nyalisa-landale]

Happy Caturday! I hope you get to be as cozy and contented as Bridget was when I took this picture.

[nyalisa-landale]

I honestly believe that, after we find out in 7.1 that somebody restored sphene from a backup, alisa took that dimensional key to ultima thule and fucking buried it. like, she knows y'shtola wants to study it, and alisa also wants to do that, but everyone's just gonna have to wait until all the Alexandria shit gets handled, because we are not having a repeat of that eternal queen debacle.

but based on that voice line in the trailer demanding it back, I know in my heart of hearts that it will be in our pocket at that very moment, and has been the entire time. and I know this because the warrior of light left sphene's special fancy regulator behind after we killed her, for literally anyone to retrieve, and alisa would never have done that. she'd've snatched that shit up for safekeeping along with the key. for specifically the reason that somebody else did grab it! backup sphene's wearing it! it might even have contained the backup they restored her from!

if alisa had a nickel for every time she was like, "hey, I don't want this foe I've just vanquished to get up again. let's make sure that doesn't happen," but she was overruled, only for that foe she had just vanquished to fucking get up again, she'd have two nickels. which isn't a lot, but that's two times too many.

(the first one was zenos; alisa wanted to burn his body so an ascian couldn't steal it. of course, then zenos decided to steal his own body back, which he shouldn't even have been able to do since he was fucking dead, so maybe she has three nickels, actually?

of course, even if she'd gotten her way, elidibus would have still started walking around as zenos. he just would have had to borrow emet-selch's clone lab first. but alisa didn't know that existed at the time!)

(as another aside, I feel like there was a point in the msq - in a dungeon, I think, or near one - where Our Heroes had access to a store of regulators? or maybe I just wanted there to be, because alisa would 100% have stuffed as many of them in her pockets as she could grab, purely for the purposes of distributing them among her engineer friends to see if they can figure out how they work, and possibly disarm them or maybe even weaponize them, like designing malicious code to then upload to The Cloud via regulators in order to sabotage The Cyber Rapture Part 2. or something.

(I also feel like some combination of the mad scientists alisa knows might also use the regulators and their underlying principles to invent telepathic discord, but the scions having a telepathic group chat is, perhaps, entirely too powerful to consider. it would be funny as hell, though.)

[nyalisa-landale]

"I'd destroy the world to protect you" but it's a parent/child relationship

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(おじゃま攻撃かと思いきや | キュルZ＠5巻7/27 さんのマンガ | ツイコミ(仮)から)

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[nyalisa-landale]

discord servers replacing forums and similar niche communities primarily sucks for being a black hole of information but a close second is that it discourages lurking. maybe i want to anonymously observe a community to see what people are like and if i would fit in before i start interacting! maybe i don't want to immediately jump in to a spammed chorus of animated greeting stickers on an account tied to several other elements of my online identity! let me lurk!!!