I saw that the Maryland State Fair has a “weaving less than one year” category and thought it might be fun to enter. The deadline is soon so I decided it would be good weave something small and quick on the Cricket to enter so I started this.

I taught my husband how to indirect warp for this one so he could help out in the future if I needed him to. I think he got the hang of it. It is pretty easy!

I had ordered warp sticks and they came in the day before I used them. I’m not sure how it happened but as I wove, some of the yarn inched off the side and was directly on the bar and became very tangled.

I was so upset because I had been doing a very careful job minding my salvages and rows and I couldn’t see anyway to salvage it. I had to cut it off so instead of a wide scarf/narrow wrap, I ended up with a large placemat or tablerunner. I figure I can use it in backgrounds of my food photographs but I’m not going to enter it a contest!

I used Brown Sheep worsted weight Nature Spun wool as the warp and some Red Heart Unforgettable in Candied for the weft I had from my mom’s stash she gave me after she got sick. I actually bought some more in case I didn’t have enough so I am drowning it in now! It really worked well as the weft and has a nice shimmer. Maybe I’ll try again some day?

I still want to enter the contest so I’ll have to try something else and be more careful. There was a gap of a few minutes between warping on and cranking and yanking so maybe that was it? I did have some trouble using the warping sticks with the Cricket, it has two back warp bars and a rod rather than the one back bar like my Kromski and that also threw me off. I’m not sure why exactly it has two? It made it trickier to use both the paper and the warping sticks—the loom is small and there isn’t a lot of space for your hands if you are warping close to the edge.