Skip to main content

loom in danger

there is a loom in the lake district that is in danger of being chopped into firewood.

for reasons that are too long-winded to go into on a wee 15-minute net sesh, i find myself in the central belt of scotland about to take a trip to greater manchester and back.

there was a dobby loom in the same location, and i was considering running over to rescue the box and reeds, but somebody has bought the loom as a One.

there's still another loom though, a 4 shaft counterbalance by the look of things, tho was unsure from my phone conversation. but it has a beater bar, with fly shuttle. and i'm starting to think that it might be worth my time doing it on foot, just to rescue the beater bar, shafts, back and cloth beams, pullets, ratchets and all that. i would feel awful taking a saw to a loom to cut off the useful parts, but i guess it's no different from taking the good components form a messed up old car that's gonna be scrapped

i don't want to break it into bits, but if it's that or kindling, i'd rather the expensive bits got saved.

-a

Comments

SpinningLizzy said…
Great minds think alike! Several times, I've considered doing just what you describe, although have never acted on it. After a while, though, it gets too easy to become overwhelmed with loom parts and accessories -- and too limited space! I've learned so much putting together loom parts myself -- it's great instruction in itself.
30 March 2009 at 05:20
Andrew Kieran said…
to be honest, i can't face traipsing over to penrith and back before gheading up north. i forget how tiring travelling becomes, being out of your comfort zone, having to sleep on strange couches and so on.

so i think i'll probably let it slide.

shame though
30 March 2009 at 22:26
Anonymous said…
When I read the first line, I thought perhaps it was a joking comment about frustration with a loom you were working with. I've never threatened to chop one in to firewood, but did grumble many remarks about throwing one particularly frustrating one out the window a number of times (it was a borrowed loom, which I'm no longer borrowing!).

That's too bad somebody isn't around there to salvage the nice parts. It's a shame when a loom isn't good for anything more than firewood. But on the other hand, it can be incredibly frustrating to work on a loom that isn't in good shape - so I suppose they can't all be saved.

By the way - Thanks for visiting my blog! I had fun reading some of your posts here, and hadn't stumbled across yours until I got your comment :-)
2 April 2009 at 04:32
Andrew Kieran said…
hooray!

as it goes, there's nothing wrong with the loom. it appears from the pictures ot be in perfect order. and what is a loom but a tyensioning device, a number of shafts and a reed?

as far as i'm concerned everything but the beater bar, reed and the ratchets can be jury rigged from fresh forest timber and everything else is just a bonus.

i did want to save the beater bar though. as i'm a long way off being able to build one of those myself.

hey ho
2 April 2009 at 19:40
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tablet Weaving Lesson #1: Backstrap weaving a simple diamond motif

This is the first in a series of video and photo tutorials showing basic to advanced tablet-weaving concepts. These lessons shall each build on the last and hopefully take the viewer from simple diamond patterns up to more complicated double face pattern weaving with finer yarns and eventually onto the heady heights of brocading and other fancy techniques (just as soon as I learn how to do them myself). In this first lesson we'll learn the basic weaving steps involved in weaving a diamond pattern in the backstrap style. This lesson is meant for someone who has purchased a ready-made warp from me. The next lesson shall detail how to design and make this warp oneself. And we begin This is the basic pattern we are making. The woven band is tied to my waist with another strap. I am holding a small stick shuttle in my right hand which contains the weft. In front of me are the cards, each card has 4 warp threads going through it. The gap that you can see is called the ...
4 comments
Read more

Hochdorf Two Hole Tablet Weaving

So, I saw a picture of a Hochdorf band woven by a member of the Historic Tablet Weaving group on Facebook. It looks like you can get more detailed patterning with this technique and you also get a nice sort of pebbled effect in the background weave. Anyway, so I googled it and found this webpage  The Warp Factor , with a nice explanation of how to weave this band and a good diagram to go with it that tells you exactly when and where to turn the cards. Nice stuff. This is my second attempt at Hochdorf patterning. First was in acrylic to work out the technique and the use of the board. Second in 2/60's silk, to make something extra special nice. This is my new weaving board. It's a bit scrappy but it does the job. there's a few wee annoying problems with it, but the next one will be better. This is how tension is maintained on the band, with a nice even consistency. The main part of the band is held as one with a bag full of weights. The selvedge table...
1 comment
Read more

treble-cloth construction

I am currently in the process of designing a triple layered fabric. One layer shall carry conductive warp threads (one out of every three), another layer shall carry conductive weft threads (again, one out of every three) and a third layer shall lay between them and act as an insulator, keeping them apart and preventing unwanted contact between the two conductive layers. Constructing a treble cloth is a compicated process. The way that a treble cloth is woven is that first the face cloth is woven, then the centre cloth is woven, then the back cloth is woven. This is a draft for a treble cloth. The crosses indicate weaving marks for the cloth currently being woven, the dashes are lifts and are used to indicate shafts that are being lifted in the case of layers that are above the layer currently being woven. Blue is back, Red is front, Green is centre (All three layers are plain weave btw) The cloth is constructed like so 1: Back cloth is woven. All red and green marks are lif...
2 comments
Read more