Another loom...

Saved from the waste tip - last year I bought some spinning equipment from a man who was clearing out his mother's house, as an after thought he mentioned there was an old loom that he had been going to take to the tip, but could drop off at our house instead.

We think this was made to the plans in David Bryant's book, also available from his Craft Designs website. It is probably around 30 years old, same as the spinning wheels I bought at the same time. The owner had clearly been a keen spinner and weaver and taught the crafts - I also have yet to sort out a bag of homemade rigid heddles, stick shuttles and backstrap loom pieces.

We have had fun caring for this loom, it has been taken apart, all the wood and metal re-finished, got new supports for the beater and rubber stops for the beater on the castle, new aprons, new shaft springs. A couple of nights ago I rubbed the shafts with candlewax to help the heddles slide along them.

I like the metal ratchet and pawls and the way the shaft levers lock in position. I like the solid wooden frame, it's rather beautiful. However it has sat on our living room floor in the way of my piano for six months and it is about time I got a test warp on it to check the shaft action as there is now a weaver ready and waiting for a loom, so if she likes the look of it and I find that all is working well it can go on to a new home - and then I can play my piano again!

Postscript: two blog posts in the two days of 2013: I shan't keep it up, you know!

A Day in the Life of My Loom

This is an annual 1st January event started by Meg where weavers around the world post photos of their looms on New Year's day. I expect most weavers have cloth on their looms, due to a series of foot/knee/ankle problems my floor loom has not been in used for weaving for some while. With the aid of an excellent physiotherapist that should not be the case for much longer.

What is on my loom here is - on the back beam,  a collection of recently spun skeins of yarn that I washed to set the twist a couple of days ago (a range of coloured merino and alpaca blends) on the top bar a few woven bands (right), a couple of skeins of handspun white Portland and a beautiful stole I have been wearing woven by one of my weaving friends, Mavis Lakin, in plain weave and showing Mavis' incredible talent for putting together yarns and colours. The warp is a Collinette boucle yarn, I'm not sure of the fibre content, and the weft is a darker varigated wool yarn. It feels wonderful and drapes most elegantly.

Behind the loom are boxes and bags of fibre and yarn and a box with a few spindles (on the left).

Work in progress today includes spindle spinning a merino and silk blend (one of those from the New Zealand spinning wheel makers, Ashford) and a knitted cowl from my own handspun yarns (the pattern by Elizabeth Lovick is in YarnMaker no. 12). The red wool in the cowl is left from a scarf I wove for my Mother for Christmas 2009.

Best wishes to all for the New Year - 2013!

Weaving courses in the UK

I am currently researching spinning courses of two or more days so that I can publish details in YarnMaker, it's going to be a new part of the "Events for your diary" section. However, for the time being it will be only spinning, not weaving or dyeing and only courses of more than 2 days as there is not space for all the short courses and tutors to be listed.

Weaving courses I can list here - and there are some excellent tutors and superb opportunities. These are just a few...

If I had not gone into publishing, I would have been very keen to study with Janet Phillips and especially interested in her Weaving Master Class.

Stacey Harvey Brown offers a wide range of classes at her studio in Staffordshire, and she has a wonderful collection of looms there including a restored Jacquard loom.

Alison Daykin has an established business weaving for interior design and teaches a regular evening class in Leek for new weavers, it's worth contacting her if you are interested in other types of course as she is setting up a new studio for her own weaving and teaching.

I know these three tutors through us all being members of the Online Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers, which runs a few online weaving classes each year, in 2013 there will be one on rigid heddle weaving and another on network drafting. In the past I have enjoyed courses with this guild including lace weaving, twills and double-weave. In 2012 there was a deflected double weave course, which unfortunately I didn't have time to participate in, but I did enjoy reading the teaching notes and seeing the photos of work.

For people interested in basic weaving, there are some fun courses for new weavers each year run by Janet Phillips at the Threshing Barn, near Leek. I met someone who had attended a rigid heddle class at The Threshing Barn, bought a loom and went on to set up a business making wall hangings. Don't underestimate the possibilities of simple looms!

There are a number of interesting courses offered in London at the Handweavers Studio and Gallery, some weekly and some short courses catering for all kinds of weaving.

Hiliary Charlesworth of The Loom Exchange who is writing a series on beginning tapestry weaving for YarnMaker runs various courses including tapestry and peg loom weaving.

There is also a list of tapestry weaving tutors on the British Tapestry Group website.

One of my weaving friends very much enjoyed a course with Snail Trail Handweavers a few years ago with a beautiful blanket woven double width on the loom of her own handspun yarns to show at the end of it.

And... not forgetting (as readers of YarnMaker will already be aware!) 2013 sees an Association of Guilds Summer School, in Wales, at which there are various week long courses including weaving. You don't have to be a guild member to attend, but guild members get a discount.