Beka Rigid Heddle Loom

 From the archives: 20" Beka rigid heddle loom that I owned back in 2008-2009. I bought it on craigslist with the manual, and all the stuff above. Notice the little teeth on the front and back beam. The tension is held with nuts that are tightened to hold the beams. You have to loosen and tighten the nuts to move the warp beams as you weave. I think it was made in the 1970s.  
The upright device is a stand that one would use by sitting placing on a chair, then sitting on the flat square area with the upright portion in front of you to support the loom. The person who sold it to me told me that her husband built the stand following a set of plans they saw in a weaving magazine.

Here I am sitting on the stand with loom in approximate weaving position. I don't have any pictures of the loom being used. I sold the loom in 2009 when I was cleaning out the closet and needed to make room. I kept my Erica rigid heddle loom.

These towels were finished in January 2009.
(click on picture for larger view)Woven on Beka 20 inch rigid heddle loom, 8 dent (threads per inch warp), wet finished (wash & dry), hand hemmed, finished size 14 x 24 inch.
This is woven with peaches and cream cotton yarn, the worsted yarn weight, not the heavier double worsted.

No. 1 white, I bought a 14 oz cone at Walmart about $7 No. 205 gumdrop, 2 oz ball, $1.75 ea, two balls

That should be enough for 4 towels altogether, I wove two at a time on the loom.

It takes most of one colored ball to warp for two towels.

Here is the pattern, 128 ends wide, 8 dent heddle

8 white, 8 color, 96 white, 8 color, 8 white

I warped with about 78 inch threads, allowing 15 inch for cutoff.
Your yardage may vary.

Wet finished means after weaving and cutting off the loom, I put it
through the washer and dryer.

Here is a video that showed me how to hemstitch with the fringe.

hemstitch video by Cherri Hankins
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHBKqG2Do2I

My fringe is almost all three strand, but there is one two strand fringe because 128 is not divisible by 3.

The pattern should work with any variegated color yarn that you think would look good with white.

Have a good day!