Things for weavers from Wonderwool Wales 2012

Last weekend I was at the Royal Welsh Showground in Builth Wells for the two days of Wonderwool Wales. I was there to meet people, talk about YarnMaker, and come away with material to write about the show for the handspinners who read YarnMaker.

So, this post is for weavers. I came home with two superb weaving things, firstly a new loom. A 12-shaft Oonagh table loom from new British loom maker Greg Meyer.  It is 12" wide and folds with the warp on.  This is a really practical loom as I am short of space for weaving!  When I started working on YarnMaker in December 2009 I had to find office space, and in doing this I gave up part of my craft room. I have been shuffling things around trying to get them to fit ever since.

This is how things look today:

I can get to the table (where my new loom sits), to my spinning wheels, to the desk where I was sitting to take this photo, but the floor loom is difficult to access.

How to make space has been troubling me for some time. Just shifting stuff into another room while I weave and back again is not a good answer. One of the biggest problems is behind the floor loom, near the bench, where my Leclerc Table Loom is stored. I have nowhere else to move it to where it is not in the way. It is going to have to go. After all, it actually duplicates much of what I can do on the floor loom.  The Toika floor loom is not going, so the Leclerc loom must. I am consoling myself with the fact the Oonagh has more shafts. Because it folds flat, the Oonagh can fit under the table when I'm not weaving.

I also brought this back from the show:

A shade card for the Venne yarns sold by a new supplier, My Fine Weaving Yarn. They also import bamboo and soy silk yarns. The colours were hard to resist, so I've promised myself that if I use up some weaving yarns in the next 12 months I could buy some more next year.