Tag: Rep Weave

While I was planning something else…

Most of you know at this point that my son has been deployed to a place in the middle east that is challenging. My goal this year was to stay so busy I wouldn’t have time to think about that challenge. And so far that has been my life saver. The exhibit was one of the greatest things to happen to me professionally. It is down now, or rather the 41 dress forms have been moved to a smaller gallery, the Titan Gallery, around the corner from the main gallery. That leaves the main gallery for their end of semester student show. I had wanted to get there to see it. At the beginning of May, the full exhibit will return, exactly the way it was, to the main gallery, with another reopening May 9th, coordinating with the Teen Arts Festival. The exhibit will remain up until the end of August. I expect to be there the final couple days before reopening to check that all the labels are correct and all the clothing hanging the way I like it. Lots of zhuzhing up…

Here are a couple images from the Titan Gallery.

The show will reopen with a formal opening from 6-8PM on May 9th, that’s a Thursday, and the hours of the show, from what I understand, are M-F 9-6, and probable Saturday hours, but that’s not confirmed.

The response has been overwhelming, carloads of friends, guild members from across three states, friends from my High School in South Jersey, I’m touched and honored at the support. What a beautiful way to end my professional career, allowing me to do fun things that retired people do. Like weave, knit, garden, volunteer, you know. Have fun…

I made the decision last fall, that I really needed to remove the invasives from my property, and so I hired a fantastic landscape designer, highly recommended, to basically redesign my property. I mentioned this before in my blog. She has been remarkable. Covered in mud at the end of the day, she is out there with her one helper, hauling dirt, hauling trees, moving boulders around my yard. This is just one area that she has cleaned out and reworked, and the hundreds of plugs of perennials will eventually be added. My entire property will basically look like this but full of perennials. My only job is to keep this watered and weeded until everything is established. No problem she says with complete confidence…

Meanwhile, I had this beautiful vine covered gazebo that became invaded by a horrifically invasive Akebia vine. Which I did not plant. It killed everything else, except one pocket of cross vine, struggling for any kind of survival. I gave my daughter permission to start ripping. 11 bags later to the brush recycling, and the structure had been so compromised that we decided to purchase a similar domed structure that would help support the crossvine and any new ones we planted, and anchored the two together. It will be a few years, but I’ll have my gazebo back.

So while all of that is happening, I signed up for a three day workshop through my guild, with Rosalie Neilson, on Rep. Rep is a warp face structure, with alternating thick and thin wefts. It is great for rugs, and bags, and I just wanted to hang with my weaving buddies. Day 2 was entertaining in that we were about 15 miles from the epicenter of the earthquake that struck western NJ. It was felt up into Boston. They are still talking about it. 4.8 magnitude. Not common on the east coast. At first I thought the building had been hit by a truck, but the rumbling and shaking kept happening. It took us a long time to figure out it was an earthquake, and so we ran outside. I have to honestly say, it was an incredible experience to feel the earth under my feet swaying back and forth, like waves, subtle but very intense. I’ve never felt anything like it. It was a powerful thing to witness. We stayed outside for about 15 minutes and decided we were cold and went back to the workshop. No discernable damage, we kept close watch on our phones for any updates. There have been something like 85 aftershocks, none of which I felt.

We ended the workshop on Saturday, and though I still have warp left, I cut off what I’d done, and we all got to take pictures. I’ve done rep before, so I understood it, but I had never tried Warp Floats, which is a sort of turned Honeycomb structure, except both sides are the inverse of each other unlike weft Honeycomb. I want to try more of that.

Sunday, one of my guild buddies and I headed into NY to the NY Botanical Gardens Orchid show. It was of course gorgeous, and I couldn’t take enough photos. Their infamous glass house of course had other types of plants, and I’m always up for cactus and succulents.

Lots of inspiration here, especially for dyeing…

Meanwhile, because I’d pulled a lot of old work and scraps from the attic looking for things for the retrospective, I had piles of scraps, still, from the production years in the 1980’s. I hate to just toss all of it. I keep thinking that there has to be some fun thing I can do, some patchworky thing, besides all the ornaments, bags, totes, greeting cards, etc., I do already for my guild sale. These are not my best fabrics, these are plain weave, mixed warps, all from the early and mid-1980’s. But they are still valid fabrics. So I thought I might try my favorite sweater jacket pattern, and maybe a larger size, so someone bigger than me can fit into it at my guild sale. I started to lay out the fabrics in a blocky random way.

I have lots of colors in scraps of silk noil, that I made into bias tubes to put between the butted handwoven scraps, which were fused onto a backing. I added a layer of punch needle fleece, so when I stitch down the bias tubes, I’d be essentially quilting the jacket.

I wasn’t sure at first, but now that I see the back finished, I’m really liking it and can’t wait to see it as a finished jacket. There is a four part series of this piecing technique on my YouTube channel, The Weaver Sews. They were some of the last ones I recorded.

Meanwhile, I’m continuing work on the cat appliqué quilt blocks my mom gave me last year, something she wanted to start in the 90’s, but never got around to it. She asked me to make it for her. I was horrified at first, but then started playing around with it, and truth be told this is so much fun. I love watching each cat build from the fabrics they give you. This one is particularly challenging with all the fringy fur. But I’m finishing up quilt block 4 of 9. Blocks 1-3 are in previous blog posts. This cat is a Persian, and all that is left is the face, which has something like 35 pieces.

And in between all of that, I’m rehearsing for a concert in May, with my early music group. I love the music, Renaissance music is fun and fun to play, and this particular concert will also include music from video games like the Legend of Zelda.

I should have been at rehearsal tonight. But life sort of got in the way. You know, things happen when you are planning something else?

So Tuesday, I was running around shopping and packing boxes to send to my son overseas. He asked for some things like K-cups and snacks, and I’m a good military mom, and got right on it. Trying to fit everything into one box proved challenging, so I went out to our recycling bin for a second box. I was running up and down between floors, my house is 125+ years old and there are practically steps between every room. I came down carrying the second box and missed the last step and next thing I knew, I’m screaming in pain, and the indignity of it all, and please don’t let it be broken.

I did manage to get to the post office, to ship two boxes of stuff to my son in parts of the world that are challenging. I left the post office and knew at that point that it was broken. Three hours in the ER confirmed. I’m pissed of course, because I’m having fun, and keeping busy doing the things I want to do. I want to be in the gardens. I want to be at music rehearsal. I want to be weaving, and planning, and volunteering. The diagnosis is a cortical avulsion fracture at the dorsum of the navicular, with a possible fracture at the lateral aspect of the cuboid. Or in simpler terms, I broke the top of my foot.

They gave me a temporary splint, and a pair of crutches, and may I say that giving an almost 70 year old woman a pair of crutches is pretty dangerous. I almost killed myself a half dozen times on the way home.

I saw the foot specialist today, and in the corner of the waiting room was this really pretty fake hydrangea. I got a picture of it. I loved the colors. I’m already thinking it will be my next warp. The foot specialist put me in a boot, but wants an MRI, scheduled for Monday to make sure I didn’t tear the tendon coming from my ankle. I doubt it, and I’m in absolutely no pain. There isn’t much swelling, and I’m learning to navigate with this giant thing on my foot. Please don’t tell me I’m doing too much. There is no way I can sit on the couch with my feet up for anything longer than an hour or two. I just can’t do it. There is too much going on, animals to attend to, and too many fun things I want to do. So I will find a way. My next goal is to figure out how to get out in the garden, sit my butt on a cart, and continue pulling out invasives. A broken shoulder two years ago didn’t stop me, and a broken foot won’t either.

So I’ll be at my opening in a boot, I’ll give the Teen Arts Festival keynote address in a boot. I’ll perform at my early music concert in medieval garb, with a boot. I’ll take a workshop in natural dyeing at Peters Valley in a boot. And I’ll drive to a farm in south Jersey for a lecture on growing dye plants, in a boot. And I’ll do what I always do. And if I have to weave on a floor loom, I still have one usable foot. Mostly I’m working on table looms, so that isn’t an issue at the moment.

I’ll post the updated promotional materials for the exhibit once I have them, and I’ll keep you posted on the gardens and all my other adventures. The pieced jacket will probably be on hold a bit, because when I build these pieces I stand at the cutting table. Standing is a bit challenging at the moment, but I’ll figure out a way.

Enjoy your spring my friends, heavy rains due in tonight. Everything will get a good drink of water.

Stay tuned…

For the win part 2…

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.

Definitely stay tuned…

For the Win…

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.

Stay tuned… Lots more loom fun to come…