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Has this year felt like forever already? I feel like time expands and contracts depending on my mental state. I’ve not had any big adventures this year beyond the retreat I taught in Taos in January, but I have been doing some weaving of small tapestries as well as bird watching and drawing. Here is the year from my studio so far in pictures.
In my blog post of February 5, 2026, I talked about how to warp a peg loom unevenly for various setts. Following on that idea is how to space warps on other kinds of looms. In this post I’ll mostly be looking at tensioned frame looms warped a couple different ways. You might recognize this sort of loom as being a rectangle with some way to increase the tension on the warp. Examples are:
My first real education in tapestry weaving was at Northern New Mexico College in El Rito, NM. I was part of the Fiber Arts program which focused on traditional Hispanic weaving styles.* Our final weaving project of the course was to weave a large Saltillo.
Last weekend while reorganizing my studio, I found my Saltillo on a shelf. It is beautiful. And it is completely unfinished.
Many of us like to use small looms we can carry around or weave tapestry on on our laps. A few years ago I made this video for a blog post that Schacht Spindle Company did about their peg looms. In the video I show you how to warp these looms with uneven spacing to get the sett you want.*
The Schacht peg looms come with a rather odd sett of about 5.5 ends per inch and for weaving small, that doesn’t work for me most of the time. Often I warp these looms with a 1, 2, 1, 2 pattern to get 8-9 ends per inch or doubled to get about 11.
I have found weavers to be the most wonderful people. I suppose there are exceptions, but generally they are curious and able to ask questions. Sure, weavers also tend to like structure and can be slow to see around the rules they’ve made for themselves, but in general, the love of material and creating usually wins.
Weavers can generally also locate themselves in space. You have to have some spatial skills to figure out how to make weave structures, so the fact that they can also find their way to Taos, New Mexico from all over the Northern hemisphere doesn’t really surprise me.
