Clawlab H1 Tufting Kit Review
This blog has been a long time coming. The great folks at Clawlab asked me if I wanted to review their Clawlab H1 Tufting Kit.
I told my marketing point of contact that they were barking up the wrong tree asking me to review something crafty that required artistic ability. I am NOT that guy.
They told me that I was just the kind of person they were looking for. So I finally relented. And for a couple of months I was convinced that my take on this whole tufting thing was more correct than their take on the tufting thing.
And then one day the AH-HA light bulb finally went off over my head and I began to understand. But let’s start at the beginning, shall we?
Clawlab H1 Kit
The kit contains:
- Hard Zippered Case
- Frame Assembly
- Tufting Gun
- Yarn
- Tools
- Power Brick and Cable
- Multi-Purpose Lubricant
Jumped In Too Fast
Right from the get go I made the biggest mistake you can make. I put my design on the tufting side as you would view the final product. When you go to the back side IT IS BACKWARDS. Whoops.
Check out my first attempted tufting job:
Then I depleted the yarn they sent me by screwing up so much. So I ordered the wrong size yarn off of Amazon. It simply did not work. Anybody want some skinny yarn?
And regarding the yarn: IT KEPT FALLING OUT OF THE GUN. Rats. If it didn’t fall out it would bunch up and stop tufting. At this point my tufting gun was just a “make big holes in the tufting cloth gun”. Boy was I getting frustrated. Then I asked Clawlab exactly how to adjust the hole on the tufting needle. “Halfway, grasshopper, halfway” is what they told me.
Then I ordered replacement yarn from someplace that took forever to get here. I also had no real clue how to engage the wings on the side of the frame that provide tension from side to side. My tufting cloth was always loose. Really loose.
Then I ruined so many projects that I ran out of tufting cloth and had to order more.
Am I Finally Getting This?
- Tufting hole covered halfway
- Right size yarn
- New tufting cloth stretched TIGHTLY in the frame assembly
- Correct form and speed
Why yes, I am getting somewhere. I am still making mistakes but those mistakes look better. This video was kind of a remake of the first one but I want everyone to see them both because they do show some improvement on my part.
Am I Ready For An Actual Project?
Yep. Here we go! I have to say that this looks good enough for gifting. The BC is the logo of the church my wife and I attend and I think this will be a cool wall hanging for our Bible Study group. But you’ll have to watch the video to see how it ended up!
Closing Thoughts
While initially I was in way over my head I did learn that I was trainable, albeit it took me longer than most any other human on earth to get a finished product that looked good.
That brings me to the question, “Should You Get One”? Let me take the long road to answer this question. When I was a kid my mother could sew as could her mother. They both could knit and needlepoint. These were seemingly a hobby at the time but they created TREASURES that were handed down to their children.
So “Should You Get One”?
I say yes.
If you have no other hobby skill then this is something you can do. This is for darn sure an example of “If I can do it, so can you”. You might not think much about the hobby rugs or wall hangings you make today but I promise you that your children will view your art as a TREASURE. And they will think of you every time they see it after your time has passed.
Get out there and make some memories.