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gfish ([personal profile] gfish) wrote2003-04-06 05:50 pm

Looming Deadlines

Last summer I offered to make [livejournal.com profile] xiadyn a loom. There seems to be a big gap in the small loom market. You can get tiny toy looms and you can get $400 tabletop looms, but there isn't much in-between. I thought, hey, let's make our own. We can use the old barn down by the river! It took... longer than I expected. About two months. And even then... it didn't work very well. I of course promised the good Xia that I would fix it, but never really got around to it. Almost two months ago she moved to Portland and it still wasn't fixed. Last month she came up to finish moving things and it still wasn't finished.

Well, it's finished now and I'm going to deliver it to her tomorrow. The wire on the beater1 still needs to be replaced with monofilament, but the heddle2 movement is now what it should be. The travel isn't quite as large as I would like, only being 1.75 inches. But better than before, and easily increased with standoffs if needed.

Pictures of the loom from last August (and some pictures of cloth woven on it from September) are up in a newfangled groups->projects->loom presentation courtesy of Erato.



1: The beater is the frame with vertical slits that you pull back on to compress the weft.
2: Loops that pull the warp up and down to allow passage of the shuttle.

[identity profile] shandryl.livejournal.com 2003-04-06 11:22 pm (UTC)(link)
That, Comrade Mr. Fish, is one heck of a cool loom! And nifty looking fabric!