Loom work - starting your first row

Yesterday I showed you how to warp your loom, today we will progress to your actual looming and those first couple of rows (which, in my opinion - are always the hardest).

If I have a pattern that I am following, I will start my looming around the 6th row.  This allows room for adjustments when you get to the end and room for you to come back and tighten up your finished looming.

I start by cutting a piece of weft thread about two arms length (the length of the weft thread depends on what you are comfortable with).  I tie the weft thread to the bar at the top of the loom.

I start my looming about an 1.5 to 2 inches down from the top of the loom. This process then allows you to come back at the end of the cuff to make adjustments.

After threading your weft thread with your beads - raise the thread so it sits under neath the warps.

You will then move the weft thread, and push the seed beads up through each of the warps as demonstrated below  Gently use your fingers to push the beads through the warps.

See the first few beads on the right hand side of the picture how they are now sitting nicely on top of the warp thread.

Take your needle and slowly start to re-thread your beads ensuring that each bead is located above the warps.

You can see as we near the end of the first row how the needle is above the warp thread.

To ensure that no beads are sitting below the warp, I leave my needle above the warp thread and run my nail over the top of the needle to see if any slide.  If you find that one bead hasn't made it to the top of the warps, gently pull the needle back out and pick up the missing bead, then repeat the process.

A closer view of how the weft should look just before you pull the needle all the way through the beads.

Tighten up your weft thread and tidy up the line of beads.

 For the next row, which will be slightly easier - commence the process again by bringing the next weft thread from left to right (dependent on which way you like to bead).

Again, thread your needle through the beads until you come to the end.  You can see that already the beads are settling into the pattern and the tension feels good.

Again, tidy up the row - you won't have to do this as much as you go along.  I call it beadkeeping and by tidying up the rows as you go along keeps the beadwork consistent all the way through.