Materials...$22.00,Time....3 hours, Effort....Priceless

Over the years my DH has built little projects for me, and not so little projects like the screen porch and garden pond, which I have always considered to be priceless, certainly more meaningful than anything store bought. The latest gift, as I mentioned here in an previous entry, is a tapestry loom.

We went to Lowes and picked out some straight 2"X1" oak, I would have chosen the Douglas Fir, save that they did not have enough to accommodate my needs. We discussed several ways to make a sturdy frame and after some thought I asked him what he thought about bolting the sides onto the top and bottom beams so if I choose to work on a flat surface the sides will be raised enough and offer room to work my hand under the warp. He felt he could find a way of doing this and make it stable. We decided bolting the frame would offer more stability than nailing it. The next question would be what is the best way to bolt it. Instead of drilling through the top and bottom and using wing nuts on the back of the bolts DH suggested using Tee nuts that recess into the wood about halfway and sits flush with the top surface which accepts the bolt, securing it, without any hardware on the backside of the beams. This will prevent any metal possibly damaging the surface the frame will lie against. Finally when planning placement for the warp nails we drilled the holes first, staggering them to prevent the wood from splitting, before hammering the bard nails into place.

So you see the project is easy enough and very inexpensive. The materials came to $22.00, and after I return some of the hardware we ended up not needing it will actually come closer to $20.OO. While it is a basic loom, it is fully functional and saved us about $100.00 or more had we bought one of similar size. I was also happy to find that the frame DH built with the Triangle loom he gave me a couple of Christmas' ago works very well with this one also. You can see how this is the ideal way to go for anyone interested in Tapestry weaving, but not quite sure to what degree. There was very little time and expense put into the project, that if I find that I don't have the talent for this fibre craft I have not invested a great deal.

A final note, when proofreading I notice that throughout this article I have used "I" and "we" in reference to planning and building the loom when in point of fact it was my DH who contributed the most to this this project, for which I owe him a big "Thank you!"