I purchased this little pre loved loom recently. I bought it because I wanted a loom I could transport, to have as a demo loom for events. I’m increasingly being asked to talk about my practice and my involvement with fibreshed Scotland to a variety of groups and associations and as I’m a hands on type I want to have a visual aid to hopefully inspire others to have a go at weaving.
So after what seems like ages for a pre owned loom this one popped up at the right time for the right price, in fact the exact same amount of money I was about to have payed into my bank for a couple of groups I was asked by Fife Contemporary to host. It felt right.
I had learned on George Wood looms which are full size floor looms. I then designed on industrial double width looms, a far cry from a wee thing like this loom.
I have in my studio a 16 shaft semi production floor loom and just let go of my double width Glimakra floor loom as the old hips were complaining.
While this loom is lighter in weight I wished to embrace new weaving.
I warped up for me a very small warp of 10m with a relatively thick weaving yarn just to get to know the loom
I was getting frustrated that I couldn’t throw the shuttle as I knew I could. The shuttle just kept falling through the warp. This I assumed was the design of the loom and as I had bought the widest possible I thought that the loom was really for small warps where the weaver could throw the width of the warp easily.
What was not working for me?
The design of this loom has no shuttle race. As it came with stick shuttles I guess this is how it’s supposed to be worked.
For me weaving longer lengths I’m used to using shuttles and pirns.
Doing my best Heath Robinson impression I have attached a stick just under the warp. Hay presto it works.
Hope this helps you weave faster with your ashford too.