Welcome our newest baby to the CA room (being stored at the shop to be brought over after the expansion) Thank you to @kyrithia for finding this deal and securing it for us!! It’s now paid for and ours.
Jeannie if you wouldn’t mind please educating people on this delight.
@Team_Creative_Arts
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Been busy for a few days, so excuse the delay in replying.
Pretty excited about this loom though. Wider weaving width and ability for much longer warps will give us much more flexibility on potential projects. Plus weaving on a floor loom is faster too. The number of harnesses is the same as smaller loom, but there are tons of patterns a 4H is capable of and it will take years to exhaust the possibilities. Having both gives us flexibility with different projects or easier to work in personal project while a class warp is happening. And she’s willing to hold onto it until we’re ready with new space for it. And it comes with several nice features or items that collectively add up to more than what the loom is costing. A very good deal.
The gory details:
It’s a 45” weaving width, 4-harness jack loom. Harnesses have to do with how complex the patterns can be. A jack loom gives versatility of patterns that another style of loom (counterbalance) won’t allow. Jack, countbalance, and countermarche are all different types of loom mechanisms with pluses/minuses to each. Jack-style is very versatile for a classroom setting.
Comes with a 12-dent reed (spacer for threads, and to beat in place) and we’ll get a couple more to accommodate various thread weights. Has sectional warp beam. Excellent for a certain style of warping and is a very nice feature. Tons of heddles, enough for finer weaving without needing to get more. Oak I believe. Nice and sturdy. The person that has it right now is tweaking the tie-up on the treadles to take texsolve, instead of the wire they have. (Less annoying for several reasons.) Throwing in a loom bench, which saves us money. Not sure of maker (it was inaccessible at the moment) but thinking maybe Norwood or similar loom from 1970s era. Wide enough for throws, baby blankets (what’s in the pic) without double-weave. And a 4-harness jack loom gives us plenty of versatility in patterns for a long time, but can put on much longer warps than on the smaller loom. We can weave for years without exhausting what it can do. Overall, it’s a great fit for where we are in fiberarts and what types of projects folks have indicated interest in.
Logistics, in case you were curious, since it’s a sloooow thang:
Like our little 15” 4H class loom, logistics will involve shared warps for classes. We’ve done it over a year on the little loom and it works fine. What this means is I’ll pick a project with a focus on a particular weave structure and/or object, warp it with enough for several folks (usually 5-6) to weave same project (can customize weft colors), then folks come to initial class to learn how to do basic loom operation and how to read the draft.
Then students will take turns coming independently whenever convenient for them to weave their piece. We’ll have a rough timetable and once one person lets me know they’re done, I’ll tap the next one. When all done, I’ll cut the warp off and let everyone know their pieces are ready for pickup. This method has worked well for little loom.
I’ve also got logistics worked out if someone wants to do a personal project. I would love for folks to do that, and if they want to learn to plan and warp it themselves, I’ll mentor. Kind of a project with training wheels. The high-point of logistics will mainly be coodinating with me so that they take advantage of windows of time between classes, or I can arrange a window, but it’s available when I need to warp it for class.
Generally, we coordinate, and there’s a window we will agree on so that it isn’t tied up ad infinitum but does give a reasonable window to get it warped and woven off. I’ll monitor so this isn’t abused (and cut off if necessary). I WANT people to learn to weave, and this is the next step after taking a class just to see if they enjoy it.
My highest hope is this path:
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take a class, try it out (no warping, just enjoy the weaving part, much like we’ve been doing on the little loom)
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do a mentored training-wheels project. We coordinate. You or you and another person or two. Walk you through planning a project, the several steps of warping (I demo but you do it), then weave off project, and finishing steps.
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do something completely on your own. Lemme know interest and we’ll pick (or create) a window on the schedule (like a few weeks), then you come in, warp and weave it all on your own. Yay.
General random comments:
Yes, I plan on writing up the process and posting it in the weaving area so it’s very clear all the ways you can get weaving, depending on what level you’re at.
My time…warping a loom to prep for class generally takes 6-10 hours of personal time. But for that, or if meeting/mentoring someone, I work five minutes from DMS and usually get off at 3pm. So it’s easy for me to break things into chunks and swing by after work or at a fiberfrolic night to keep things rolling.
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