Weaving season is here

After a summer spent growing flax, hemp, and dyeplants, it’s getting cold outside, which means that I am shifting my focus towards weaving and a bunch of spinning, to accompany it.

Earlier this fall, I had the opportunity to travel west to Erie, PA to rescue an antique 4 shaft loom. I’ve spent the last month or so restoring this loom and am happy to have it up and weaving in my summer studio space. It was a long drive to get this loom, but it also meant an opportunity for a quick visit to my daughter at college in Alfred, NY, which made the trip worthwhile. The loom was quite complete, including multiple sets of shaft rods with old knitted heddles, parts of a heddle-making jig, and two reeds which came with the loom. The reeds and the loom itself were marked with the surname “Beede,” and the heddles matched the wooden jig. I am happy to have been able to preserve all of these parts and to put the loom back in service.

This antique counterbalance loom was rescued from a site near Erie, PA. In this picture, it is set up to weave in a studio, with a linen warp.

I made a new set of knitted heddles for the loom, using the heddle jig parts that came with the loom. I used a linen twine sourced from the site, webstaurantstore.com for this project, and it seemed to work well. The shafts I used did not have porter (beer) markings, and it definitely took me a minute to get the hang of how to tension and space this old style of heddle, but I will make another set for an upcoming blanket weaving project, and I expect they will be better the second time around.

Heddles in the process of being knitted (knotted). In this image, the dowel I used for creating the eye has been partially removed. One of the two net-making shuttles used in the knotting process is sitting on top of the jig.

A closeup view of the newly-made linen heddles.

Linen weaving in progress on the “Beede” loom. Don’t look too closely at the stripes in the center of this warp, please! I made the warp more than a year ago when I was first practicing multi-strand warping, and very consistently turned my hand the wrong direction for the stripes I intended to make. My first set of knitted heddles are visible beyond the fell line (complete with red yarn marking a threading error and the insertion of a single heddle). The temple, with scribed date(s?) from about 1850 also came with the loom.

I still have a handful of workshops to teach this fall, and the grant reporting for my USDA SARE project to complete, but I hope to spend a goodly portion of my time spinning and weaving. One of my main goals: get all of my unfinished warps woven off! Some of my looms are in unheated studio spaces, so we’ll see how this goes.

I am spinning for a blanket weaving project. I have about 2,000 yards of the 8,000 I’ll need completed. It’s very good to have a task like this to turn to (both mindful and mindless) as civil society in the United States continues to deteriorate. As Jonathan V. Last says, “Good luck, America.”

A Jensen spinning wheel with a full bobbin of freshly-spun wool yarn. Marlowe, the smooth collie, keeps watch from the couch.