Picking Up Pick-Up

I’m playing with pick-up patterns on the rigid heddle (RH) loom in preparation for a class I’m teaching at Uncommon Threads. Its giving me a break from threading the big 24H dobby loom.  This is a fun and easy way to get patterns on a simple loom. I’m struck by the comparison of simple loom complex patterns vs. complex loom simple patterns…..It took about the same amount of time to warp up the RH loom, weave 3 samples of different pick up patterns, and wash the samples  as wind a 20 yard warp on the back beam of the dobby loom, and organize the heddles. OK, I know that the end product is really different as I’m going to weave a bunch of towels on the dobby and just a few samples on the RH but its kind of interesting to compare. Sampling on the RH is very quick and interesting if you want to try out something new. With pick-up, the patterns approximate what would take you much longer to achieve on a dobby loom.