At a recent weavers' conference, Bruce was attracted to a
Louet Octado loom in the vendors area, and said he thought he'd like to have that loom, and learn to weave. It shouldn't have been a surprise - after all, he's been watching me weave for the past 43 years, and has been a general weaver's assistant for most of that time. Fast forward a few months. The loom arrived, was assembled, and then the fun began. Erik gave us an old laptop, we installed software, and eventually got the loom up and running.
We have an interesting arrangement: I do all the designing and warping (this is the part of weaving that I really love). Bruce does all the weaving on the Octado, mostly while he's listening to music on his stereo. He was a fast learner. His third warp was a set of white tencel aviator scarves to replace the beloved silk scarf that he wore to shreds. His weaving technique is steadily improving, and he now has an even beat and very tidy selvedges. The current warp is for a blanket, a wool warp set up in birdseye twill on 8 shafts. The weft is a border Leicester wool I spun 2-ply from the fleece our son and daughter-in-law gave us from their flock of a few years back. This is a gorgeous wool, glossy & nearly black, and we have a ton of it! It's so great that Bruce is weaving now, and we will finally have a way to use this wonderful stash. When he's finished with the 10-yard warp we'll cut it apart into 3 lengths, sew them together (baseball stitch), and there's our blanket.