Weaving Loom (retired)

[American Girl Rescue]

Released in 1998 for $18, retired in 2012.

Josefina learned to weave blankets on a Navajo loom similar to this one. Your loom arrives with the vertical warp threads already in place so you can get started right away. The kit comes with complete instructions, weaving tools, and enough blue, red, brown, and cream-colored yarn for one doll-sized blanket.


Josefina’s Weaving Loom
Item# JBAW
$18 (price increase to $28 January, 2012)

"Josefina can perfect her blanket-weaving technique with this set, featuring:

* A Navajo loom with the vertical warp threads already in place
* A kit with complete instructions, weaving tools, and enough blue, red, brown, and cream-colored yarn for girls to make one doll-sized blanket"

This is a great addition to Josefina's collection for me. I just love being able to make her a blanket with her own style loom. I haven't done it yet, but I have the replacement warp already to go for when I do get this one made.

It has a plastic frame that is made to look like real pieces of wood. The clamp, shuttle, and fork are also plastic. The warp is basic string and the heddle and shed rods are wooden. The batten is wooden.

The yarn is real wool and just wonderful. The colors are white, red, blue and brown. It's going to make a great blanket.

There is a 16 page instruction booklet included that is pretty easy to follow. Probably not for a younger girl though. Some technical terms. The loom is 13" x 9".

Grade A.

[American Girl Rescue]

Some additional comments from a 12-06 now-defunct thread on the General Discussion board about Josefina's Weaving Loom:

puglove said:

From Puglove:

I Have it!!! I got it as a Christmas present to my dolls (well I guess you could say myself) In my oppinion for 18 dollars ( I believe that was the price) it is a realy good buy) it is fairly big for the price and goes well with my "scene for Josefina" The wood is not real but plastic but the detail makes it look very real. A instruction book, yarn, and tools are included so you can make your own small blanket. I do wish they would have included some doll sized wooden tools for Josefina though, but this is my only complaint. Otherwise I would highly recomend it, it is a good buy for the money considerin AG's prices.

From Gracie:

I got this for DD two or three years ago. I thought it was really cool, but DD got frustrated with it. I was concerned about whether it was staying when they started putting the replacement looms on sale a lot, but it appears to still be around. There is a way of resetting the loom without using the replacements, but for $5, the replacements are worth it.

[/size]

agmom said:

From AGmom:

My DD also got frustrated, it has been under her bed since last summer. Seems she was unweaving it more than weaving. I thought I would sit down and figure it out, there was a discussion on HB about it once, I should have paid attention.

What I do remember is that when you are finished with the blanket you will cut it off the loom, to start again you will need to re-string the loom which seems complicated if you have never done it before. I'm not sure if the directions have this information or just a diagram of it.

It is plastic, made to look like wood. DD and I demonstrate nalbinding at a local pioneer days, we've gotten to know the weavers and these ladies were so impressed with this loom, they ohhed and ahhed at the detail. They may be the ones who told us about ending the finished blanket.

[tara]

I got this set some days ago and I love it! The instructions are detailed and not at all confusing. Although the loom itself, and the needle, clamp, and fork are all plastic, the shed rod (top sliding rod) and the batten (long flat wooden thingy) are real bamboo (not accurate for Josie, but still cool) and the other parts AmericanGirlRescue mentioned as wooden are normal wood.

I finished the weaving in four days, but I could imagine getting frustrated with it when I was younger. One thing I do like is all the stripes, so you can change color often and not get bored of constantly weaving with a single color.

Now, the important thing. On the website AG calls it a doll size blanket. However, they conveniently forget to mention that by doll they mean Nin~a, Josefina's doll! But the blanket is big enough to cover a doll-sized banco (bench) or cover part of a doll, like her legs.

The wool is not your normal craftsy/knitting wool. It's much more authentic and thicker and fuzzier .

For around ten pieces and a new skill you can learn yourself, I rate this:
****** A++

Also: I believe this piece is doing very well because mine came in the newest box, with the newest pamphlet type that was introduced last year or so. I have heard that these sorts of crafts are becoming popular, so this may herald similar pieces for Felicity, Samantha, Molly, and other popular AGs.

[green chile supergirl]

I haven't used this piece yet, so no final grade yet, but I really like it! I have to admit I'm afraid to use it. Until today, I thought the replacement warps had been retired, so I set it aside for some rainy day. Now that I realize that the replacement warps are still available, I'm going to order some and get to work!

Now, I take a bit of exception to this being called a "Navajo" loom, because the Navajo learned to weave blankets from my people, the Pueblo. But, since it is a Navajo woman who teaches Josefina to weave, I'll let it slide this time.

The colors are very nice and go nicely with Josefina's blanket. Now, it will turn out to be very small, so yeah, it's probably best for Niña rather than Josefina. I appreciate the soft, bright colors of the yarn. Josefina's blanket could have used this yarn rather than the awful scratchy stuff she has to suffer!

I'm excited to use the loom. How often is it that a Native American girl of today can purchase an crafting item from her own heritage? It's pretty rare, at least for me, and I truly appreciate that AG made this available.

[Wickfield]

The loom: This was so much nicer than I was expecting! I knew it was plastic and thusly was awaiting the worst, but it is actually very weighty; it feels more like resin to me. It's also realistically painted to look like wood. The loom comes pre-strung (mine was a tad crooked, unfortunately, but it isn't awful), with the shed and heddle rods already attached and ready for weaving. It seems quite small next to Josefina but is a really neat display piece. A+

The yarn: The yarn is real wool and very pretty, complimentary colors. However, my yarn is THICK. It's quite off-scale. I can't tell if it's really a difference from the others' sets (it's definitely thicker than AGR's, it might be the same as GCSupergirl's), but regardless it looks odd when it's on the loom and next to Josefina. I think it's so that the girls who are actually wanting to make the blanket can get it done quicker. But I would have preferred to take my time and get a finer weave. B- UPDATE: I was looking at the yarn and was really discontent with the result, and then I decided to unravel it into two separate pieces like embroidery thread. That can be tricky but it makes your weaving look so much better if you have a new set!

The tools: The tools include a fork to push the yarn down, a batten (is that what it's called?) to separate the warp threads, a big plastic needle which I didn't get in my picture, and the shuttle. They seem a little large for Josefina but I don't know if they're supposed to be to her scale anyway. Except for the batten, which is wood, they're made of thick matte plastic and look like bone or something. Interestingly, they are stamped "Pleasant Company", I guess because of the mold. Oh, also there's a clamp to hold the loom onto a table which was a very nice addition! They do their job. A

The booklet: Normally I wouldn't have included any info on this but I wanted to mention that my set (which I just bought new from AG) has a different booklet than AGRescue's. Mine is printed entirely in black and white with a different cover; this must be a change from 2007 (that's the copyright date). Anyway, it's written in English, French and Spanish and is pretty easy to follow, with some interesting information on Navajo weaving. I didn't have any difficulties (and shouldn't, I'm 18), and I doubt I would have had trouble when I was younger. The only tricky thing is sliding the batten through the right way, but after you master that you're set. NOTE, though, the booklet does NOT tell you how to rethread the warp, so keep that in mind. A-

[breeze]

It seems that Josefina's weaving loom may have changed some through the years. I've heard that the current one looks more like it's made of bone rather than wood.

[PleasantMemories]

My loom was purchased in the summer of 2005. Although I haven’t looked in the boxes, it very much resembles the display piece at AGPC. However, the ones that are for sale could be different. Like others have mentioned, it’s always been plastic that’s made to look like wood (and sort of fake looking at that).

Also, I’d be very hesitant to say that there are Pleasant Company and American Girl variations of this set. Any dividing lines would be quite hazy because the set was released around the time that AG purchased PC in June of 1998. Also, from what I gather, this set was never a huge seller. With the exception of one piece, everything in my set has Pleasant Company stickers. Therefore, it looks like they were still trying to move excess PC stock years later.

[sleepytiger]

I just pulled mine down to take a quick peek.
I'm not sure why one would consider it to look like bone. It definitely looks like it was made to look like wood.
I ordered it about an hour before free shipping ended, so mine is recent.
Tammy

[skukla]

[American Girl Rescue]

Mar 26, 2011 12:18:22 GMT -5 @artsigirl said:

Did anyone else have issue with the bottom pad of the clamp breaking off?

No, but can you call CS and see if they have a replacement piece?

[ladoyle]

I just got my loom, and it only has red, white and blue yarn. Is this correct?? Am I missing brown, or did they do away with it?

[Wickfield]

Um, I got mine in 2009 and it still had the brown yarn....