The Loom Story

Many years ago, I bought this antique loom. It's totally hand made--actually hand hewn from yellow pine. All the wood has a wonderful patina, warn smooth by hands and use.

Here's what it looks like all assembled--I finally found the old slide of it set up in a corner of a living room.

It's in sections now, stored in various places around my house. The largest pieces are the two upright pieces that have the arms on the side to hold the counterbalance beam at the top.

The warp beam is a modified log with holes bored at intervals. The rod that serves as a break can be inserted into the holes, looped through the rope that holds it from rotating (see the right hand side of the loom) Quite effective, really.

The reddish colored heddles are made of string tied in linen thread. They work just as well as wire heddles; actually even better because they have a bit of forgiving 'give'. It's not hard to replace a broken one, just tie up another thread.

The original reed is made of thin slivers of bamboo held down with strong cording wrapped around two round rods that measure the width of the interior of the loom. I still have it. It looks like the cord has been shellacked to give it strength. I'm sure the bamboo worked fine as a reed, but some of it was missing, so I inserted a metal reed in it's place.

Not much to the tie-up or treadles here. I suppose I could add two more harnesses and a couple more treadles and have a 4 treadle counterbalance, but I was happy to do rag rugs and tapestry type weaving on this old beauty.

The cloth beam has a wooden feed dog and a rocker brake on the side. (Not showing in this photograph.) I understand this kind of brake is a Scandinavian style one. The rhythm of the weaving and heft of the beater was a real work-out.

I bought this loom from a lady who was sitting, spinning wool in an old mill in Southern Missouri. The mill was open for visitors, although there was hardly anyone around. Just on an impulse, I asked her if she knew of anyone who had an old loom for sale. She said she had an old one at her house that she used to use, but hadn't for quite some time. I can't remember if she said it came from the mill or out of an old barn, but in any case, I was afraid the trip to look at it would probably not pan out. Since it hadn't been used in some time, it was probably an old wreck.

She volunteered to take up to her house to look at it. It was set up in a spare bedroom. I could hardly hide my excitement when I saw it. I asked her if she knew anything about where it had come from, etc. She didn't have much information, but wanted to know more about just Who I was after I asked her how much she wanted for it. I got the distinct impression that she just wasn't going to sell this loom to the first person to come down the pike.....

And after about a half hour or more (these things take time, you know) talking with her and my giving her almost my whole family tree, she decided I was 'okay' I guess, because we agreed on a price and began dis-assembling the thing to load it into our car. I wanted to know and paid very close attention to how it all went together so I wouldn't be stumped when I wanted to set it up. Our family were transferring across country and I would be setting up the loom again some weeks from the time I bought it.

All this and I hadn't even learned how to weave at the time. But, it's one of those things that I felt in my mind, I already knew how to weave. It wasn't hard to do on this loom--it's so simple to set up and use. I made rag rugs and simple tapestries on it.

A few years later I was able to take an intensive weaving course in London. And, on returning to the States, bought an 8 harness table loom to make more complicated pieces.