I know I’ve been home for a couple of weeks, and I’ve been getting kind notes wondering when I’m going to talk about my amazing trip, and it was amazing, I can assure you.
I hit the ground running as soon as I landed, and struggled for a couple of weeks with serious jet lag. I had just started to adjust to the 13 hour time difference when it was time to head back to the states, so it took almost another 2 weeks to try to explain to my poor body that I needed it to wake up at 7 and go to bed at 11pm. I had just a few days to buy my vegetable plants, get them in the ground, thoroughly clean the house, and prep for a private student coming from Montana for 5 days. That included meal planning, and food purchase, and making sure all was ready.
My student was a delight. When I think that housing and feeding a student for five days and spending essentially 24/7 with them, teaching them all they want to learn, is way too much, I have a student like this who reminds me why I continue to do this. Just before she arrived, I spent hours one evening in the doggie ER with a dog who apparently got tangled with the other dog, fell down the stairs, and scared us half to death with what appeared to be either a broken hip or spine. Turns out nothing was broken, and he is mostly healed. But life has a way of completely getting in the way of best laid plans.
Like this trip to Japan. My daughter and I had originally planned the trip for May of 2020. We all know how that went. By the time we were able to go, the stress of going away for two weeks, and boarding the animals, and thinking of all the things that could go wrong, made me almost not want to go.
But we went. And it was wonderful. Everything I hoped it could be. Our tour sponsors were Tom Knisely and his daughter Sara Bixler of Red Stone Glen. Sara was the hostess with the mostess, she was super prepared, had kits made for all of us that wanted them, to keep us busy on the long bus rides, in kumihimo braiding, flat origami shapes, and sashiko stitching. Our guide and translator Juka, was just a joy, really experienced, she has been leading tours for 30 years. This was her first time with weavers, and she got to try all the looms we tried, and experience all the techniques too. The tour company was Opulent Quilt Journeys, and I highly recommend them. They know textile tours.
Anyway, I have about 900 photos to process. So much of what we saw and did went by in a blur, but I grabbed images and English text translations on the signs as best I could, so I could sit down later and create a digital album of the incredible journey. I am just into Day 4 (of 13), and have hit 48 slides already. Here are just a couple of the highlights so far, hopefully you will be able to read some of the text.
In the meantime, I had started a sweater somewhere in 2019, because I traveled so much, knitting was a great airport pastime. Typically in any give year, I’d make a winter sweater and a summer top. This poor sweater sat languishing in my knitting bag since March of 2020, the last time I got on a plane. I finished it, and got to knit a pair of socks as well.
A few blog posts ago, I talked about all the writing assignments that had come across my desk. The final one has been published, in the Summer ’23 issue of Shuttle Spindle and Dyepot, from the Handweavers Guild of America. You can read all about weaving mohair, now that it is summer!
My days are ridiculously busy, which I know is my fault, though it really isn’t a complaint. But I have this cool studio with 64 named looms all of which I worked really hard to get warped up, and I haven’t been able to get out there to weave on anything. A couple days ago, in a determined mindset, I went out, randomly picked a loom, probably as a response to the SSD article, which I submitted months ago, and finally finished the warp yesterday. I decided that until I need the loom for something else, the fabric will just stay on the loom finished. Because I don’t like naked looms, and I don’t have a place to put 3.5 yards of mohair yardage that the cat won’t adopt. So it will safely stay there…
There will be more of the Japan trip, I’m sure, and I’ve already had guild requests for presentations. They may regret that inquiry, as I time a guild presentation – 40 slides = approx 1 hour… I’m at 48 for day 4… This digital album is for me though, so I can remember all we did in a visual way. I don’t care if anyone sees it. I recently looked back on the one I did for my trip to Morocco in 2019. I’m so glad I had it because I had forgotten so much. Lots of people asked me about it on this trip, but I couldn’t remember the names of some of the things we did and saw. Even this trip to Japan, I find I’m running down the hall asking my daughter if she remembers the name of the robe each hotel provided. It was a Jukata… Should have taken better notes…
On the days I’m not full of places to be and things taking up my time, I’m hoping to weave, and work on the Japan album. That’s in between garden tending and keeping things watered. We had a ridiculously wet spring, my yard was a swamp, and I started planting things that loved to “keep their feet wet”, like elderberry. Now everything is bone dry, ground splitting in spots, and I’m looking at plants thinking, what’s drought tolerant? Right now we are downwind of the Canadian wildfires and you can’t go outside without an N95 mask. Good thing I have a supply. My heart bleeds for my Canadian friends.
I will leave you with a couple of overall thoughts about Japan. I will miss the kindness, respect and courtesy of the Japanese people. I know every culture has its issues, but it is not lost on me how hospitable the Japanese people are. And the toilets. I loved that even in the train station, there were Toto toilets, with heated seats, and built in bidets… And I miss the convenience of the breakfast buffet…
Seems like everything I do, from doctor’s appointments to purchases online to attending theater events, gets followed up with a survey. “Tell us how we did!” I hate them. I understand their necessity, and it would be great if the people reading them actually took the comments to heart, but mostly all this extra paperwork just makes my sitting in front of the computer even more overbearing, when I really just long to be in the studio.
When I do fill out a survey though, most of my opinions don’t fit the questions. If there is a box marked “other”, I usually click it, because in my life, most things require an explanation. I’d be terrible on a jury. I can’t answer yes or no. Even in a class, students ask me questions and my answer is always “It Depends…” Life isn’t black and white. Fortunately. It is in breathing living color, and there are lots of shades and tints within!
So with that said, I have a bunch of different “other” looms that didn’t get mentioned in my last 3 blogs, bringing the total of named looms to 64 I think. There are about 20 frame looms in the attic, for teaching purposes, and about a dozen hand made Schacht Inkle Loom knock offs, also used for teaching. And I think 7 still in the box Inklette Looms from my years of teaching, and I didn’t count any of them. I counted the ones I use, that I named, and so, because I wanted to document where I am at this point in my life, I’m going to finish out the list with the “other” looms.
Every weaver has probably seen or has a Peacock loom. I even found an ad for one, when I was assembling a lecture for a guild a number of years ago for their 50th anniversary. I researched what was popular in the day when they got started, and it was quite a representation of where we have been as a handweaving community.
So I have a little 2-shaft Peacock loom, named “Peacock” which is pretty unoriginal, but there you go. I use it when I have a young person visiting and they want to “try weaving”. I have refurbished it with new heddles, which I made with a jig, and new roller cords, with heavy duty shoe laces, and it is a solid little workhorse when in the hands of a new weaver wannabee…
A number of years ago, my daughter called me while I was on the road teaching, about a Glimakra Band Loom for sale from one of our guild mates. I told her she wouldn’t like sitting sideways, but she persisted and I gave her the money to purchase it. I was right. She hated sitting sideways, and immediately redesigned the way the treadles worked so she could sit in front. That would be my daughter! This loom is named “Seven“, not the number but the Star Trek character. On it is a gorgeous warp, which she put on, plain weave, but hand dyed yarns that are wound in an ombré effect.
We own a card or tablet weaving loom, purchased from John Mullarkey years ago at a guild workshop. I’ve done card weaving many times, still prefer inkle weaving, and John and I have on more than one occasion done a “Battle of the Bands” performance at a couple of conferences. Tablet woven vs. Inkle Woven… That said, we have this loom, that my daughter warped a number of years ago, named “Rom“. I know the pattern is in one of my many booklets from John and I should be able to figure it out. My daughter isn’t big on accompanying paperwork. So I’d like to finish it off, in one of my outdoor weaving stints.
I also blogged recently about my Gilmore Wave loom, which I dug out and warped after a trip to a lace day sponsored by the local lace group, where I came home with a little baggie of about $200 worth of lacemaking threads, some hand dyed. I immediately set to work warping my Wave loom, called “Quark” and am really happy with the result. Warping was a challenge, but weaving is a breeze.
The rest are a large assortment of inkle looms, there are four Schact Inkle looms, seven Inklettes from Ashford, and a Beka, named “Beka“, which doesn’t have a warp at the moment, but I recently finished off a long warp for an Anni Albers’ Necklace project with my guild around the holidays.
I loved the Inklettes for their portability. I could fly somewhere to teach, and pack a half dozen of them in my large roller bag and be able to have a technique in progress to demonstrate with. I’d love to clear them, since I don’t do that anymore, but all of the techniques are part of myAdvanced Inkle Weaving class (which I can do remotely), and there is a monograph available that details all of the techniques and how to do them. You can purchase the download in my eStore here.
“Bryce” has a beginning sampler with plain weave and Baltic Pick-up. I keep it as a “Learn to Weave” loom for inkle weaving.
“Adira” has a sampler featuring a complementary warp, light and dark, specifically for pebble weave. Warp yarns are Tencel.
“Stamets” is set up for Paired Pebbles, and I just keep repeating this small motif, for demo purposes, but it would be nice to have a finished band, maybe across the top of a small zippered bag! The threads are 12 wt. cotton..
“Tilly” has a sampler on it, for teaching purposes, supplemental warp and baltic pick-up.
“Nelson” is set up for a supplemental weft project, trim for a jacket, like the Chanel style.
One of my favorite patterns, from Ann Dixon’s book of Inkle Weave patterns, is something called Runic. It is free form weaving, you make it up as you go along, and I set this loom named “Owo” years ago, with hand dyed silk yarns from Treenway Silks. I need to finish it.
And “Detmer” is threaded for 3 shaft Turned Krokbragd, done on an inkle loom, which is a very cool thing. This is also Tencel.
That leaves the four Schacht Inkle Looms. “Rios” is a sampler, also for teaching purposes, threaded in a complementary warp, light and dark.
“Raffi” is another of my Learn to Weave looms, set up for simple Baltic Pick-up, or just plain weave.
“Jurati” is also set up as a beginning loom, with plain weave and Baltic Pick-up options.
And finally, yes there really is an end, is “Elnor“. I set this up in 2021, when I downloaded Annie MacHale’s newest book for Three-Color Pickup for Inkle Weavers. It took me a while to master the pattern, and of course I don’t remember what I did, so I’ll have to go back and figure it all out all over again, but that’s the point of all these looms, so I’ll keep figuring it out and one day have all these structures in my head ready to explain intelligently as needed.
My guild mate, who comes on Tuesdays to just play with all of my Structos, suggested a huge accordion file to store the paperwork for each of the named looms. The one she brought me wasn’t big enough with 30 something files, so I bought a second one and taped them together. Now to get paperwork for some of these looms from my daughter!
So you might wonder how I have shuttles for all of these looms, especially the Structos, which I talked about in the last post. I have a huge number of shuttles, stick and boat, but needed way more, and guild mates jumped to the task. Some I cut myself, from quart yogurt containers. I’ve also used take out food containers. The flat rectangular kind.
My guild friend who comes on Tuesdays went home and cut me a bunch from her cat litter tubs.
My other guild friend went a little crazy with her GlowForge and cut me a whole bunch of gorgeous stick shuttles and programmed in a sweet signature on some of them. In exchange I paid her guild dues. Small price to pay!
I mentioned in the last post, that I had already cleared one of the floor looms. That was a 4-shaft commission for another guild mate, for a friend of hers dining table. It needed to be 84″ long, and she wanted me to weave it in whatever structure I loved the most. The colors had to match the friend’s decor. My favorite structure is the one where I combine all sorts of different structures lengthwise in the same cloth. I have previously mentioned I documented this concept heavily in the Heddlecraft issue #38 I wrote on the subject. But I usually work with 8 shafts. I only had a 4-shaft loom available. So I reread my article, and revisited one of the 4-shaft drafts I included, from Oelsner’s Handbook of Weaves, and expanded it to include a straight draw twill, basket weave, and a broken twill. Using color and weave effects, I am so freakin’ proud of this cloth and its complexity, on only four shafts. So here is the runner on my own table, I can’t wait for photos from the client’s friend’s table.
And here is a close-up of the fabric. The draft and details are available in my eShop as a $2.99 download here.
I’m heading out next week for a very long overdue vacation. I haven’t been on a plane since March of 2020 when I barely made it home from the west coast before the world shut down from Covid. My daughter and I will be on a plane for 15 hours to Japan, where we will meet up with a tour sponsored by Tom Knisely and his daughter Sara Bixler, from Red Stone Glen. We will make a circular tour of the northern part of Japan, stopping at many textile centers for lots of hands-on experience and inspiration. Oddly enough, I’m trying to figure out what to pack, not clothing or toiletries or electronics, but what yarn I should bring. Because no good textile artist goes anywhere without a project. Socks to start, I ordered some lovely yarn from Webs, hope it comes in time.
If you do order from my shop, digital products will be available immediately since I’m not involved. Don’t forget to check your spam for the email with the link. If you order products that I have to ship, please be patient while I’m busy in Japan. I’ll resume shipping after the 18th.
So dear readers, until I return, I’ve given you things to inspire you, and keep you busy while I’m gone. My son will stay here off and on and check that all is well with the garden and the ponds. And my handyman will come around as well. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling any anxiety about leaving and going so far away for so long. I’ve been home for too long, so this is an important trip for me to regain my traveling feet. (And no, I’m not planning to resume teaching on the road!)
Stay tuned, there will be lots to tell when I get back…
I had every intention of following up my last two posts with two more, because I was only halfway through talking about the 64 named looms in my studio and what’s on them. I had intended to just jump right into the Structos, which I have many, along with the five 10″ 4-shaft Leclerc Sample Looms.
But the universe had other ideas. Right after I posted my last blogs, apparently as best we can piece together, Microsoft did one of their famous security updates, which caused havoc over at Google (don’t ask me how I know this), and the end result was a suspension of my main business email account I’ve had since I could get a domain outside of AOL. Somewhere in the 90’s?
Because I started traveling a lot, and my late husband as well, for our jobs, my husband found a way to reroute my main email, theweaver@weaversew.com, which was part of a hosted platform, to IMAP through Google, allowing me to look at my email in my laptop, or tablet. This is before the invention of Apps. So for years, that email IMAP’d through Google, and all was well. Until about 10 days ago. When it became inaccessible. At first my tech support thought it would come back, that Google was scrambling, and all would be well. Then he tried updating my email program, Microsoft Outlook, and nothing would bring back accessibility.
As I freaked out, people close to me reminded me that no one died, and that I hadn’t lost my files and records, I just couldn’t email anyone and anyone who emailed me, the emails would bounce back as no such address. Some people called or texted and asked, WTF? I gave them an alternative email. I desperately thought about who needed to reach me in the next few days, like the tour company sponsoring my upcoming trip to Japan, I leave in a couple weeks. I thought about all the guilds I’m working with for upcoming lectures and workshops. I spent days trying to change my email address so I could be reached. I lay awake a nights haunted by MFA which is a nightmare, meaning Multi Factor Authentication, meaning each address change I could actual make happen, took 15 – 20 minutes with all the 2 factor authentication, email confirmations, snail mail letters generated, texts and whatever. I get the need for security, but this was ridiculous.
Anyway, I’m not out of the woods yet. I worked with my hosting company Pair.com (which by the way is incredible) and they gave me a multi page step by step on how to redirect the email off Google back to a hosted mailbox through my weaversew domain. Sounds complicated, I can assure you, I’m not so tech savvy and these last couple weeks have been my worst nightmare. (I know, there are a lot of things worse than this).
My tech support, who is probably the best in the state, is not so easy to get, largely because he is the best in the state… While waiting for him, I kept trying to figure out what to do, working with tutorials, working with my hosting company, and I was able to get my email working again, but not in my preferred email program Outlook. I spent hours trying to come up with the right set of settings or protocols to make it work. It didn’t help that two of my three email programs were affected, and that there were 11,000 emails in my inbox on my main email address, and apparently 5,000 emails in my back up gmail account. So I spent hours filling and sorting and deleting until I was down to almost nothing.
I was finally successful in getting the right settings and got both email accounts to work in Outlook, but only on my office computer. I was afraid to even start messing with my laptop. One thing at a time. Turns out that was a good move, because by the afternoon yesterday, all of my email folders I’d created over the years, disappeared. Gone. I’ve never been so devastated, and I’ve had some pretty crappy things happen in my life. “You should have backed everything up” was not helpful, because I didn’t know how. Because my laptop remained untouched by my successful transfer of the emails back to Outlook, my daughter and I successfully spent until about midnight last night, with my tech support logging in remotely, retrieving 33 GB (no that’s not a typo) of email data off my laptop, dating back to 2013? maybe beyond… So I have everything, at least I think I do, and my emails are all functioning. If you emailed me and got no response, I lost about a week of emails, they would have been returned to you. Try again.
I’m waiting for tech support to help me reinstall the 33 GB of data back into Outlook, but I have it. And those 11,000 plus emails? They are all back. I’m thrilled and yet devastated that I have to go through them again and sort, file and delete.
I wanted to title this post For the Win, part 3, but I wasn’t sure if I felt like I won anything anymore. My filling all my looms seems rather anti-climactic. Nevertheless, I’m going to plow forth, and document anyway, so bear with me, because at the time (2 weeks ago) this was a big milestone for me. I’ve already cleared one of the floor looms I talked about in my last posts, so before I clear anything else, here is the list.
The first 13 Structos and 2 Leclerc sample looms are all set up and ready to go for a Learn To Weave program I do annually, and they can be used for any demos my daughter and I should encounter during the year. They live up on shelves around the studio patiently waiting. But they are all warped thanks to the class we taught at my guild in January. Their names, all after Star Trek characters, are “Yar, Worf, McCoy, Sato, Kes, Chekov, Uhura, O’Brian, Bashir, Troy, Scotty, Crusher, and LaForge“. The two Leclerc looms are “Neelix and Phlox“.
I also have a baby 2 shaft Structo named “Rand” that is only 4″ wide. I keep that set up with a handpainted warp, because it is really helpful to be able to explain how a loom works, with one that is set up, and help students identify the different parts of the loom.
The other three Leclerc Sample Looms are “Lursa“, a 4 shaft loom with a Huck sampler from an article titled “Stuck on Huck / 4 shaft Library” by Lynn Tedder from Best of Weaver’s Huck Lace, edited by Madelyn van der Hoogt.
“Bettor” has a 4 shaft doubleweave sampler from Jennifer Moore’s Doubleweave, but I used the threading from Ursina Arn-Grischott’s book Doubleweave on Four to Eight Shafts. I don’t know why I did that, for a challenge maybe? It hurts my head…
And “Hemmer“, which I talked about in a recent post, another 4 shaft loom, threaded in a straight draw (I think), intended for intense pick up. I found a booklet from Elizabeth Tritthart, historicweaving.com called 100 Horizontal Stripes. I love this one, and yes, it is really slow cloth, tedious as most pick up is, but you really can lose yourself in it and take pride in seeing the design build. And it uses up embroidery floss!
The remaining dozen Structos have cool drafts and structures on them, and I periodically pull one out and just weave. I can take one easily onto the deck and weave outside! The documentation on each one is important, because I have to remind myself each time what I’m doing, where I am in the draft, and how it even works. I have a guild mate, a relatively new weaver, who comes once a week to explore a different loom. It helps to teach it, and we work out together what a newer weaver understands and doesn’t understand.
If you are still with me on this… in no particular order…
This little 2-shaft loom, “Chapel” was pulled out of the attic for parts, and I decided to set up a simple clasped weft technique after a workshop with Deborah Jarchow.
“Dax” has a 4-shaft Theo Moorman threading, which allows me to weave narrow strips of silk habotai, printed with an image in an ink jet printer, on a linen ground, using sewing thread as the tie-downs. I have a monograph on the subject, including step by step how I do this technique. This is a photo of pansies.
“Picard” is an 8-shaft Structo, threaded for a 4-tie pattern called Quigley, which I’d woven in a class with Madelyn van der Hoogt, and loved. This particular pattern was designed by Diane Click and is found in Tom Knisely’s Handwoven Table Linens book.
“Riker” has a 4-shaft overshot gamp, adapted from a draft by Robyn Spady in the May/June 2014 issue of Handwoven Magazine. Robyn does great gamps! I love Gamps, I define them as a sampler that works like a grid, each vertical stripe is threaded in a specific pattern, and each horizontal stripe is a specific lift plan, and the intersections of each creates stunningly different patterns.
“Sulu” has a 4 shaft twill variation on a twill color gamp, again by Robyn Spady in Handwoven Magazine, November/December 2008. Getting the beat correct so the twill lines move at a 45 degree angle is harder than it looks.
“Kira” has only 3 shafts. This is an amazing structure on only 3-shafts. It is a rug technique called Krokbragd, which no one can pronounce, but it is gorgeous, and also very tedious. This draft is from an article Vakker Mug Rugs, by Anu Bhatia, in Handwoven Magazine, May/June 2022.
“Archer” has a structure called Deflected Doubleweave, this one is on 8 shafts. I drafted this from the Marian Stubenitsky’s book, Double with a Twist. The real beauty of this cloth will come out after it is washed, when the yarns in the structure deflect into each other. The yarns are 8/2 Tencel.
“Burnham” has an 8 shaft Rosepath point twill threading. Carol Strickler’s book, A Weaver’s Book of 8-Shaft Patterns, has pages of little Rosepath designs, which are so much fun to weave.
“Kirk” has an 8-shaft Honeycomb threading, taken from a sampler in Malin Selander’s Weave a Weave. I’ve done three of the five variations, and within each of the variations are even more variations. These are really fun. They are named after operas, the first is Tosca, followed by Aida, and then Isolde.
We are getting there! If you are still reading I’m impressed. Remember I said a couple posts back, this documentary is for my benefit, a place to remember when I warped all the looms, with pretty pictures…
“Reed” has a 4 shaft Doup Leno threaded onto it. I wrote an entire issue of Heddlecraft Magazine Issue #19, on the subject. It is hard to see what’s happening in this small of a scale, but the lacy fabric is structurally sound because the turquoise warp threads twist back and forth because of a series of half heddles or doups.
“Sisko” has an 8 shaft Shadow Weave on from a draft by Joanne Wood Peters. You can purchase the draft from Webs, it is Valley Yarns draft #199, called Shadow Weave Sampler. The yarns are 8/2 Tencel.
And last, but not least, (because there are ton more “other” looms, like Inkle Looms, still to document), is “Pike“. He has an 8 shaft Summer Winter motif, heavily adapted from a draft I think I got from Madelyn van der Hoogt in her class. I had to rework it to fit the size of the Structo.
I know this is a long post, but like I said, this is my journal and I wanted to document something I was proud of. And I’m glad I did, because I feel like the entire email debacle pales as I look at all these images. The data is there, it will eventually get migrated back where it belongs, mostly. My greatest joyful moments come when I figure out something fun or cool in the studio. They are what keep me getting up in the morning, that and the cat sitting on my face, and I’m so grateful to have this craft, the looms, the yarns, and the library of reference books to sit and pour over while I drink tea.
It is rare that I write posts back to back, most subscribers don’t want me filling up their inboxes with emails about a new blog post. But I’m on a role, and it is important to me to document this moment, with all the looms in my possession warped. It is a ridiculous amount of looms, I admit, but I’ve been asked if I had to downsize, which one would I pick. I can’t answer that. Each loom has a purpose. Until I have to move, or can’t weave anymore, they are all staying as a happy family. After my husband died, I went through a brief period of really evaluating all of my fiber holdings, especially since I am an educator and have 15 of everything, 15 drop spindles, 15 dog slickers for hand carding locks, 15 small frame looms, 15 inkle looms, etc. My daughter who caught me contemplating this, declared that I couldn’t get rid of anything because well, it would all be hers when I die. Did I mention she holds on to stuff like her father? With that idea of downsizing nixed, I just began to add to the mix when the opportunity presented itself.
So to continue the loom inventory from yesterday’s post, here are the main table looms. Starting with the Tools of the Trade looms, all are 25″ wide except this one, which is only 16″ wide and an 8 shaft. I really love Tools of the Trade table looms, they fold for easy transport, are quite sturdy, have metal gears, and the back of the loom drops away with the removal of two bolts making threading a dream.
This 16″ loom I found on eBay, years ago, and had shipped from maybe the Chicago area. I’m bad at keeping the provenance of my used looms. The outside castle frame turns out was a bit bowed, and shafts would slip out of the tracks, but I moistened the wood and put a huge pipe clamp on the side walls of the loom and that stayed on like a brace for a couple of years. It is fine now. Looms for the most part are pretty indestructible, though truth be told I’ve seen some pretty horrific mistreatment. Anyway, its name is “EMH” (from Star Trek Voyager, meaning Emergency Medical Hologram). I probably wouldn’t have picked that name, but my daughter loves to print labels, and is a Trekkie, so it is a magical combination. I don’t interfere. On it is a four shaft Doup Leno spread over 8 shafts. I use it when I’m demoing for an online class. The yarn is all handdyed cashmere I think, there was no label on it, but it is buttery soft, and took the acid dye well. Once the tension is released, it should collapse into a soft airy scarf. I think this will be one of my priorities to clear. I wrote a Heddlecraft issue on the subject of Doup Leno, issue #19.
Next to it is also an 8 shaft, but this one is 25″ wide. I remember buying this from my guild, because no one liked the loom, they thought it was heavy and awkward. My guild, Jockey Hollow Weavers, has loaner looms available and no one was using it, so they offered it to me and I paid a chunk of money to have another 8 shaft loom. It is precisely why I liked the loom so much, it is heavy and therefore sturdy. I can tighten that warp as dense as I want. This loom is named “Chakotay” (Star Trek Voyager) and on it is a Bateman Blend, #110, which I set up for the issue I wrote for Heddlecraft Magazine, issue #38, on combination weaves. I sampled, cut it off and washed it, photographed it for the magazine, and started weaving again. I don’t remember how many yards I put on, it is slow weaving, but beautiful cloth.
I talked about “Kim” in yesterday’s post, which has the Rep weave experiment. I ended up cutting off what I wove, washing it, tossing it in a hot dryer to see how much it would draw up. I’m happy enough with the cloth that I’ll leave it sett at 32 ends per inch. I laid awake last night thinking I should try to resley, but I’m glad I looked at the cloth after washing. Always a good thing. It is still slightly damp, so the color is probably a little richer than it will ultimately end up.
I have another 8 shaft Tools of the Trade table loom, also 25″ wide, and I have a vague recollection of helping someone who rescued this loom and refurbished it, with lots of pictures and support, and ultimately purchased it from her. I think my sister lived near her and did a pick up for me. There may be a series of emails somewhere in the archives, but that really doesn’t matter to me. I love the loom, and I think this one is cherry. Its name is “Tuvok” (also from Voyager) and though it is 8 shafts, my daughter set it up for a four shaft Split Shed workshop we took together back in the fall of 2019, with Deborah Silver. We each set up my two 8-shaft Tools of the Table looms, because I think the 4-shaft looms were busy. Her loom still has the warp on it from the workshop, so it isn’t mine to touch, but here are the samples that are on it so far. I would love to have the 8 shafts back in rotation again, but I have enough other looms to keep me busy.
I needed my 8-shaft Tools of the Trade set up for the Split Shed weaving class for the Bateman sample I talked about above. Because the Tools of the Trade looms are basically interchangeable, except for the size of the castle, I was able to preserve the leftover warp on “Chakotay“, by just swapping out the entire back of the loom with a 4-shaft named “Paris” (again from Voyager), so I could continue the technique. So now, my Split Shed warp is on a more appropriate 4-shaft loom, and I started a complicated design, which will probably take the rest of my life to weave off, and truth be told, I should have put on a different warp than the green carpet warp for the class, but I can recall the technique easily by sitting down at the loom.
The last of the Tools of the Trade table looms is one I set up just a couple weeks ago. It is for Zanshi fabric, which is a Japanese philosophy of wasting nothing. I wove a length of cloth in this technique a couple years ago, since I spent an inordinate amount of time in Zoom meetings at the start of the Pandemic, and just sat and tied all my thrums or loom waste together into balls. Simple overhand knots. The resulting balls get woven in a basic ground warp, knots and all, and I wove off the length of yardage in record time.
I wanted another warp to weave my endless stash of Zanshi thrums, so I set up the last of the 4-shaft Tools of the Trade table looms, “Torres” (again, from Voyager) with a fine black 10/2 cotton, and experimented with a couple different structures, plain weave, twill, ultimately settling on a rib weave, which is two shuttles. If nothing else, this should slow me down.
I should also mention that there are a couple of additional table looms in the studio, two of them are Leclerc looms, one a 12-shaft Dorothy, which my daughter bought from the estate sale of one of our own beloved guild members. She calls it “Data“. Right now it is the only loom without a warp, because it is my daughter’s and not mine to warp.
The other Leclerc is a folding Voyager, 16″ wide, also 12-shaft. We named this one “Janeway“. I bought it from another guild member, who is buying and selling looms all the time. I don’t think I ever sold a loom that came through the studio, I almost did once, but changed my mind at the last minute. My first Tools of the Trade 4 shaft table loom. I did permanently loan someone a loom, another Dorothy, a young weaver that needed a jump start, and I had a wooden Structo that got beat up in the garage before it was my studio, that I donated to someone in the guild who vowed to clean it up, but now that I have a real space for all these looms, I’m careful to protect each one. Anyway, “Janeway” has a 12 shaft Echo weave on it, which I wrote about just a couple of posts back. (The draft is from Denise Kovnat, from her collection of WIF files for Echo Weave available on her website. This is a variation.)
And finally my daughter’s folding 8 shaft Ashford table loom. When she went off to college in 2011, she wanted a loom to take with her. Friends suggested a rigid heddle and she looked at me like I had three heads. “Why would I want a rigid heddle loom when I can turn a jack loom into shaft switching!”, she declared. So the folding Ashford 8 shaft was her go to loom away at college for four years. It has seen a lot of yardage, because she is my daughter and that’s what we do. Unless we are specifically weaving towels, we never have a plan for what we weave. All that comes later. So, this is “Spock“, her first love in Star Trek, and her first loom of her own. Right now there is a warp that’s been there a while, from a couple of hand painted warps she procured from a Kathrin Webber class in my guild a number of years ago, and says that the 8-shaft structure is a modified Atwater Bronson from Strickler. Whatever she says.
I should mention the one remaining floor loom in the studio that isn’t a Tools of the Trade and caused a lot of Sturm Und Drang when it first came to me in very poor condition. I spent a lot of money rehabbing it, much to the consternation of the other looms, but they all seem to get along now, and each has its purpose. This one is a 25″ 8 shaft Macomber from the 1970’s. It is a full size loom with two warp beams. We call it “Mac“. Because it is a Macomber after all. I’ve never been a huge fan of Macomber looms, but this one does get the job done, and after all these years it is still a workhorse. And it was the loom that got me weaving one armed when I broke my shoulder the end of 2021. Right now I have an 8 shaft combination warp on it, from my 12-shaft draft I wrote for Heddlecraft Magazine, issue #38, which upon studying closer I found I could convert to 8 shafts easily. Sometimes I just amaze myself. Most of the yarns are hand dyed, which is something I tend to do in the dark winter months.
The rest of the looms are my collection of 26 Structos, and 5 Leclerc Sample looms, and multiple inkle looms including a Gilmore Wave, and one from John Mullarkey, all named after Star Trek characters. I’ll cover them in a follow up post, because they are all warped, or most of the inkle looms anyway, some are on loan to a guild mate who is doing a program for our guild.
When my kids were young, a dark time in my life because raising children, especially my children, was really really challenging, I found myself in one of the lowest points in my life. I was probably in a deep depression, not something that is a normal affair for me. I remember hearing about a book, or maybe my beloved Mother-in-Law gave it to me, by Sarah Ban Breathnach, called The Simple Abundance Journal of Gratitude. I have five of them on my shelf, and each one starts in January, with a few lines for each day of the year. Inspirational quotes are scattered throughout the book. The copyright is 1996, so that would be about when my kids were just starting school. Those were tough times. I was taught long ago, how important it is to have gratitude, for anything, even if it is just that you woke up in the morning. Desperate times call for desperate threads to hang on to, and I latched onto those little books, for what looks like five years straight, and I dutifully wrote in them five things I was grateful for each day. There are other journals on the shelf which came after, because I actually got into the habit of journaling, a healthy way of putting thoughts on paper and celebrating the good stuff and documenting the tough times. I haven’t ever sat down to reread what I wrote back then, I’m not sure I can or should. But eventually, as my kids grew and I survived multiple traumas, like breast cancer in 2002, I found that the journals I wrote to be more limiting. I wanted to add pictures, and information of where I was traveling, and teaching. I wanted to add what I was working on in the studio, and what my students did.
In 2008, I read an article by tech wizard Syne Mitchell, a column more specifically, that she wrote for Handwoven Magazine, talking about how weavers should embrace this new technology and start a blog. She explained how to do it on eBlogger, and I thought, I can do this. It would allow me to write, journal style, and add pictures, and links and keep a digital journal that if someone actually wanted to read, they could. My tech husband saw what I did, and after a couple of posts told me that I needed to switch to Word Press, and he moved everything I’d done to that platform, much to my dismay, since Word Press at the time is not particularly user friendly, and still isn’t. It just gets more and more complicated. But that was 2008.
I have written more than 900 posts at this point and I have gone back and read and reread many of my posts. I am shocked, surprised, dismayed and thrilled at all I’ve accomplished over the last 15 years of my life. If nothing else the visuals are stunning.
Lots of people read my blog, but that’s not why I write them. I actually don’t care if they are ever read, though I will say I always enjoy getting comments, because I learn a lot and know that people care and appreciate the share. I continue to write the blogs, even though blogging is so last decade, because I like to write, and journaling keeps reminding me of what’s important, or what was important to me at the time I wrote each post.
Today I reached a huge goal. It was maybe a silly goal but it is still an important one to me. In my last post I talked about all the looms I have, and how it became an obsession over the last year to get warps on all of them. A personal challenge? I had one remaining Tools of the Trade table loom in the back corner of the garage/studio that I had purchased used from Eugene Textiles in Oregon and paid to have it shipped across the country. I never got around to cleaning it up and replacing cords, apron strings, and giving it a good wipe down with Howard’s Feed and Wax. At least the heddles all canted in the same direction though I’d need to add a few hundred! So I spent a day, earlier in the week, giving this last Tools of the Trade loom in my collection, a solid refurbishment, and it was ready for a warp. My daughter named all of our looms, because frankly it is the only way we can keep track of the 50+ looms in this studio. She referenced Star Trek for many of them, and this one is named “Kim“. Ensign Harry Kim from Voyager…
In my last post, I mentioned I got the idea of Rep Weave, which I had only played around with briefly many years ago in a guild challenge, and looked through all the books I had on the subject. I found a project that I could base my design on, and started looking at yarns.
I found this cone of vintage Silk City Fibers Contessa, a 75% rayon, 15% silk yarn that at the time, (and still is) my favorite yarn to work with. It was discontinued a long time ago, but because I live near Silk City, when it use to be headquartered in Paterson, guild members in my area acquired a lot of it, and I frequently find the mother lode in estate sales. So I have a decent stash, especially in natural which I dye frequently. This particular cone was one of their beloved variegateds, called Roman Holiday. Cute name…
I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to see if there was some sort of repeat in the dye coloration, and there sort of was. It seemed the colors repeated themselves every three yards give or take.
When I want to line up colors in a variegated yarn, I have to wind the warp in a circular fashion. You can’t do that on a warping mill. Because I was going to do a short warp, 3 yards, I used my small warping board, and tied it to a music stand. Perfect height.
I went around the board, and up the side, taping off the end of the color sequence so I could start around the board again. As a side, I’m giving a lecture in warping the loom from the front to the back, a method I’ve used since the early 80’s with tremendous success, for MAFA Virtual, a remote conference in July. The great thing about this conference is you can sign up for as many sessions as you’d like since they will all be recorded and what you can’t watch at that moment, you can watch later. I believe sign ups have just begun. Anyway, I’m going to discuss what I just described in more detail in that lecture.
The other day, it was just gloriously warm and sunny and I took my warping board, tied to the music stand, and all the yarn I chose and hauled it out the back door to the studio onto the deck, where I stood, listening to the busy birds and the waterfall in the pond, and kept on winding.
Eventually I wound all the chains I needed for this very complicated warp. I couldn’t get the colors to line up as perfectly as I hoped, especially after there was a break in the yarn and a large knot, and things seemed to go haywire after that. But I persevered and got all the chains wound.
After rehabbing “Kim” I started to sley the chains, four ends in a dent, in an 8 dent reed. I tied the reed into levels, like I always do when warping front to back. Again, I’ll talk a lot about this in the lecture for MAFA Virtual.
I flipped the loom around, dropped out the whole back of the loom, which I can do on the Tools of the Trade table looms, and started to thread. This is a pretty dense warp at 32 ends per inch, basically the blocks are only on two shafts each, so I was sort of sweating whether this loom could handle such a dense warp and still give me a shed…
Then it was time to beam. The colors really started to sing, and I got the dense warp onto the warp beam in record time, since it was only three yards.
And then the moment of truth. Yes, I was able to get a shed, though I have to push down the shafts that want to ride up together, on a table loom that isn’t really an issue. Takes about 2 seconds. I chose a thick and a thin weft, typical in Rep, and started in on the pattern.
I could have sett this closer, probably should have, but I was really afraid the loom couldn’t handle it, and because I have large eye inserted eye heddles, they just don’t nest like a flat steel heddle, which I never had for any of my Tools of the Trade looms. They weren’t designed for that type of heddle. But it is pretty cool anyway, and more to the point, I’m learning a lot. And that’s why I do what I’m doing.
Meanwhile, for no one’s benefit but mine, for the rest of this post and the next couple of posts to follow, I want to document that at this point in time, I’ve warped all the looms that are mine to warp. Since most of them are mine, that’s a lot of looms.
So in no particular order, I’ll start with my first loom back in 1978, Tools of the Trade, 8 shaft, 45″ wide, with a double back beam and sectional option. When I bought it I had no idea what any of that stuff was, but I bought it anyway figuring I’d grow into it. I did and then some. Because this was my first loom, purchased directly from Tools of the Trade in Fairhaven, VT, the looms is called “Fairhaven“. All of the Tools of the Trade large floor looms were numbered. This was one of the first hundred, #94. At the moment it has something like 4 yards of mohair, desperately trying to use the last of the stash, in a plain weave, 6 epi. I blogged about that here.
After I purchased that loom, I realized I needed a second, for demos, workshops, and scarves that would match my regular production fabric, because I was full on into production weaving and beginning to do craft fairs. I bought the identical loom, but 25″ wide, so it could be put in a van and brought to a craft fair. I called this one “Fairhaven Junior“. On this loom, I have an 8 shaft project, from WEBS, documented in a blog post here.
My mother in law, who was a bit of a weaver among other things, (primarily bobbin lace) wanted a loom for her apartment in Wilton, CT. I ordered her a 25″ 4 shaft floor loom, also from Tools of the Trade, somewhere in the mid 1980’s, and when she got too old to weave, she gave it back to me. I just warped it earlier in the week with the cotton runner commission I talked about in my last post. I called this loom “Wilton“.
Next to it is its twin sister, that my daughter and I drove to Atlantic City or somewhere near there to pick up when we saw an ad that it was available. I don’t remember who owned it, but it was really for her use because at the time, she had moved out and taken “Fairhaven” with her and wanted a smaller one for workshops and demos. She named it “Porter“, something to do with it being from a port city in coastal NJ . On the loom is a cotton warp and she is cutting up her late father’s interesting shirts and assorted clothing and weaving one long rag rug art project on it.
She drove to Massachusetts a few years ago to pick up a vintage Tools of the Trade, meaning really early, predating my 1978 loom, 4 shaft 32″ wide. Somewhere along the way, someone had a second warp beam kit in their closet for a 32″ Tools of the Trade loom, which they shipped to me for free. I sat on it and realized that it would fit this loom, so Brianna drilled for it and I named this “Snyder” because I think that’s the name of the women I purchased it from. Right now I have a ten yard ice dyed warp on it, which has been on there a while, and I think I’m weaving this in a crackle structure. I blogged about it here.
Mother’s Day 2021 Brianna loaded up the trailer and drove 4-5 hours to Rochester NY to pick up the largest loom in the studio, which was a 12 shaft Tools of the Trade loom, 54″ wide. # 486 one of the last looms he made. We called this loom “The Duchess“. It is almost too much loom for me, though I did weave my 12 shaft combination weave fabric for my walking vest which was part of the collection I sent for the Convergence fashion show in Knoxville, TN, summer of 2022. Brianna now has a very cool 12-shaft dishtowel run of fabric, in rainbow colors, based on a 10 shaft draft from a Robin and Russ collection we purchased from a weaver’s estate sale. I find the logo for Robin and Russ a bit disconcerting, but the content and swatches in the four binders we have is invaluable.
Behind it sits a sister loom to my original “Fairhaven“. This loom is also an 8 shaft, 45” loom with a single warp beam, # 246, named “Princeton” because my daughter answered an ad that had this loom for sale, and she went to Princeton, with a tool kit, paid the woman the couple hundred dollars she was asking, and completely dismantled the loom so it would fit in the back of a Rav4 as a pile of lumber. She then reassembled the loom in her second floor apartment, next to “Fairhaven” which I had given her when she moved out. Of course all the looms came back when she moved back home, along with her dog and cat. The rest is history. On it is an oversized overshot pattern which my daughter says is from Strickler’s book of 8 shaft patterns.
A number of years ago, knowing I’d be downsizing at some point (hahahaha) and feeling that my 45″ “Fairhaven” was getting to be too much loom for me and that I’d be eventually giving it to my daughter, I found a loom for sale outside of D.C. that was identical except it was only 36″ wide. It is one of my favorite looms in the studio. It fits my aging body well. It is 8 shaft and has a second warp beam. # 273. We call this one “Princess“. On it right now is a chenille ‘color and weave’ on only 4 of the 8 shafts, but I needed the width of the loom. I blogged about it here. I have no idea how many yards I put on it. I’d have to go back and look at my notes. (It was 8 yards)
That leaves the six Tools of the Trade Table looms. I’ll talk about them next time, though one of them, “Kim” was described above.
