Experimenting with my flower loom

A while back I found some flower looms in a charity shop but it's taken me till now to get around to finding out how to use them. As you can see, there are retractable plates on the back holding the teeth. The plastic is quite brittle, not sure how long it'll last! I'd also prefer there to be a hole in the centre, but after all I only paid 50p!



I found a very helpful website here: http://www.knitting-and.com/small-looms/index.html and have been busy playing.

I have several different sizes, some round, some square - the bigger flower here is made on the square loom, and I just don't like it. Neither of them have enough "rows" of yarn, either - but it's all trial and improvement.



I soon discovered it is *not* as easy as I'd expected, and that some yarns just don't work out as well as I'd thought. I'd hoped to use my stash of fancy yarns which I rarely use for my meerkats - but turns out that for the moment, simple old acrylic is a lot easier to work with.



See what I mean (above)? The eyelash yarn just isn't holding the shape. I quite like the effect of the toning set below though. I tried using one strand of each of the yarns for one flower, and then decided to snip through each loop. I quite like the effect, rather like a flat pompom! They'd probably go together better with the same button, but I'm stash-busting.



Another experiment - this is a cotton yarn I'd knitted something in, didn't like and unpicked. The yarn is crinkly from having been knitted so I wasn't sure it'd work, but it gives extra interest to the flower I think.



I tried weaving in and out of each petal - had to make myself stop, it's quite addictive!



Now to decide what to do with them...

And if you'd like to see how a REAL professional works a flower loom, I recommend a trip to Ffflowers who seems to have no trouble at all with fancy yarns!



Plum Fizz flowers by ffflowers

She also sells gorgeous handmade wooden looms, so if you fancy a go, check her out!