{"id":720,"date":"2013-03-26T06:20:07","date_gmt":"2013-03-26T06:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/historicweaving.com\/wordpress\/?p=720"},"modified":"2013-06-05T15:38:22","modified_gmt":"2013-06-05T15:38:22","slug":"pin-loom-or-knitting-needles-that-is-the-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historicweaving.com\/wordpress\/pin-loom-or-knitting-needles-that-is-the-question\/","title":{"rendered":"Pin Loom or Knitting Needles…. that is the question."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_2912\"<\/a>I had the opportunity to purchase a pin loom this weekend as a result of a trip to lovely Butte Montana. The day was quite enjoyable, if a bit chilly from the snow flurries. I really did not have the expectation of picking up a pin loom that day, but when I discovered it in the clearance area of a Jo-Ann’s store for 25% of its retail price, the bargain hunter in me was hooked.<\/p>\n

I brought it home and waited until dinner was complete, and cleared away. I brought it out and looked at the instructions. All I wanted to make was a simple pair of baby socks for a grandbaby that is due in the next couple of months. I figure just a couple of hours of work.\"IMG_2977\"<\/a> Right?\u00a0 Oh, so so wrong!<\/p>\n

I began my project by watching the video and casting on and learning how to do the knit and the purl stitches on the loom. I noticed a couple of issues for me right away. It is difficult to reach the middle area of the sock when it is set to a small size. Two start over’s and more than 8 hours later, I looked at the project and it was not all that I hoped for.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2979\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am not a great knitter (I am a weaver). I can read and follow patterns, but often it is the counting that gets the better of me. But give me credit, I pulled out my trusty (rusty) double point needles, cast on and got started. Finding the locations of the purl stitches on the needles was easier to remember — I divided the stitches evenly so that I knew the two purl stitches were on the outside ends of the needles and never in the middle. On the pin loom I needed to use some sort of marker – the red post it tab.\u00a0 In less than three hours I had this sock halfway knit. Note that you are seeing the right side of the sock in this picture, but when I am knitting the right side is on the interior of the needles. (Experienced knitters don’t snicker too hard, I am handicapped – I am left handed.)\u00a0 I always have to peek inside to see what is going on. I completed the sock tonight with only minor trauma, when I picked up the knitting after taking this picture I forgot to turn it inside out before starting to knit… I had a four rows of purl stitches before I realized it. Off come the needles, and out come the stitches —(I was almost in despair except for a friendly crochet hook to save the day).\u00a0 Weaving is easier than this. Here is my final sock, a spiral tube.\u00a0 Has anyone woven a baby sock, and how did you accomplish your magic feat?\"IMG_2985\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My assessment<\/strong>: the sock loom is nice and sturdy,\u00a0 and it works according to the instructions that come with it.\u00a0 It is probably designed for someone who is a bit skinnier than I (children’s – teen’s socks).\u00a0 According to the directions I need to cast on 88 stitches to make a sock for myself and my loom is not that big (you can only cast on 60 stitches) The loom gauge is 7 stitches per inch. The actual knitting is not difficult – the rhythm\u00a0 is addicting once you get going. But it is more time consuming that I thought. I think I’ll stick to the knitting needles for this particular task this time.<\/p>\n

I have one more experiment to do with this loom, see if I can weave a bookmark on it.<\/p>\n

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All I wanted to make was a simple pair of baby socks for a grandbaby that is due in the next couple of months. I figure it would take just a couple of hours of work.<\/p>\n

I began my project by casting on and learning how to do the knit and the purl stitch on the loom, I noticed a couple of issues for me right away. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[112,5],"tags":[63,113],"class_list":["post-720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-experimental-adventures","category-simple_looms","tag-loom","tag-socks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/historicweaving.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/IMG_2977-e1370446573896.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2H0sI-bC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/historicweaving.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/historicweaving.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/historicweaving.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historicweaving.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historicweaving.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=720"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/historicweaving.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":936,"href":"https:\/\/historicweaving.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions\/936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historicweaving.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/historicweaving.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historicweaving.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historicweaving.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}