A Scarf for my Dad – Using a Rigid Heddle Loom

The Inspiration

For more than 35 years, my parents have owned their own business specializing in designing and fabricating exterior signage for local businesses. Their business, Morgan Sign, is located in the town I grew up in. When I was younger, it was neat to drive around and point out their work to my school friends. As I grew older, I even had a chance to work on some of the projects myself and was excited to see my own creativity displayed around town.

Since my husband and I moved to the big city, I’m not always up to date on what projects they are working on and often rely on posts from my brother’s Facebook to see the latest and greatest.

One day, late last year, I’m relaxing on the couch, mindlessly scrolling through my Facebook feed after a long day of work and I couldn’t believe it. My brother posted a new sign for one of my favorite local yarn stores, Fiber Creek! I’m not sure which project my parents or brother would rank as their favorite, but this one is definitely at the top of my list. My excitement must have been more than obvious because for my birthday, I received a gift card to the very same local yarn store. #BestBirthdayEver

Giftcard in tow, I took my time and thought about what should I treat myself to. More yarn? My stash could use always use more. More roving? You can never have too much roving.

And then, I knew. What better way to treat myself then picking up a brand new hobby! And thus, began my newest creative adventure – learning to use a rigid heddle loom and begin to weave. What better way to bring it full circle, then use my new loom to make something for my dad.

Making the Scarf

My dad’s favorite color is red. We are not talking, sort of likes red. I mean, loves red. He also really likes carbon fiber and the look of woven dark gray colors. I found the perfect yarn at Tempe Yarn and Fiber. The colors contained in the Heritage Wave – Checkers colorway were exactly what I was looking for. Red, with a gradient of light and dark grey. I decided to contrast it with black to tend towards my dad’s style of always wearing black.

Alright, colors picked. Hard part is over…I balled one of each skein to get the project started.

Not quite so fast. Pattern – I needed to decided on the pattern.

I had browsed online for different ideas by hitting the usual places – Pinterest, Ravelry, and just plain Google search. With the large commitment of yarn to warp the loom, I wanted to be sure it would turn out how I expected. Also, since this was only my second time using my rigid heddle table loom, I took to the mantra – “When in doubt, swatch it out.”

I looked through my craft supplies and busted out my Purl and Loop swatch maker. I tried a hounds-tooth pattern first but was pretty disappointed after only a few rows. It was causing the two colors to blend together, and look a bit messy. I really wanted to showcase the red, so then I tried large blocks of colors, but finally decided a 9 x 9 square pattern. Nine rows of warp threads, followed by nine rows of weft threads.

Now, to warp the loom. The articles online said to make the length of the scarf as long as the person is tall. I landed on about 72″ to add a little bit of length just in case. I secured my loom on one side of the cutting table and wheeled it out to the center of the room. Next, secured the peg on my craft room counter. Then… I just walked back and forth a few (okay, many) times. Nine times red, nine times black, nine times red, nine times black, and so on.

It’s hard to get a good idea of the scarf at this point, but once I started rolling it onto the back beam, I got pretty excited. The gradient was showing really well throughout the length and width of the scarf. Once all the yarn was rolled taut, I cut the threads and threaded it through each tooth of the rigid heddle. One piece in the eye, the next piece to the right. Lastly, I tied each of the color sections to the front warping rod. Now, we were in action!

Over the next few months, I would spend about an hour working on the scarf each night. My husband and I have decided to turn off the TV from 7pm – 8pm, and head over to the craft room. He usually reads while I work on my projects. Ever the multi-tasker, I also listened to an audio book (Eleanor & Park) and even snuck in a few episodes of Fuller House.

About a few weeks before Christmas, I was getting pretty close to the end of my warped threads and realized I didn’t have a way to finish the scarf. I knew I wanted to keep it to a men’s style and didn’t want long or frilly loose ends. I googled men’s scarfs and found that they typically had short, twisted fringes.

I found a fringe twister online, but was pretty surprised about the price. Luckily, my husband is pretty handy and likes to tinker, so he made me my own by using peg board accessories and alligator clips. We saved about $60 and it was fun to have him involved.

The best thing about weaving, is not having to go back and weave all the loose ends in afterwards, because you do it while you are weaving! I can’t recall how many different color changes there were, but let’s just say it was a lot more than you would want to hand sew back in and still be in a good mood about it. Once the scarf was blocked and dry, all I had to do was cut the ends close to the scarf.

And there we have it, the finished scarf! I took it up to Prescott and gave it to my dad for Christmas. My mom has sent me a few pictures this winter of him wearing it. Glad he likes it 🙂