I said I could make a warp and envisioned some volunteer actually weaving on it, either to demonstrate and/or to while away the hours when things were slow. I took the shafts home with me to make sure they were strong enough to hold the warp threads under tension. On the long drive home, I tried to decide what was the point of two rollers? There was no third roller, like a counter balance, so you couldn’t weave 3 against 1… You could use four shafts to spread out a plain weave, but you really need only two shafts for plain weave. Even if you have lots of threads, you still really don’t need four shaft. How could you do twill if only one shaft on each roller could go down ? 1 & 2 couldn’t go down together if they were on the same roller. Hmm. Unless it was threaded 1.3.2.4. I knew how to do twill on it, and treadle 13,23,24,14.- Moreover, you would be changing only one treadle at a time!

At home, I examined the heddles and decided they needed to be washed. I took them off the wood, running them onto a cord so I didn’t lose the sequence. The wash water turned dark, dark brown. Smoke damage. I really wanted to use these heddles because as well as being original, they were unlike anything I had seen. The wood shafts were crude, but the making of the heddles was impressive. Two threads on the top of the shaft- one went down, made a noose for the eye while a thread from the bottom of the shaft came up, looped into the eye and went down again. A second thread marked off the heddles into groups of ten. Someone knew how to do that from some old country way of doing it.

The reed they gave me was damaged- crushed dents almost in the middle, but it was 14 ends per inch. 14,28,42. Sounds like a linen thing. I ordered a 12 dent reed & a couple of shuttles- my warp would be cotton, white with blue. I know colour is always appealing but 100 years ago, a lot of weaving would be utilitarian. KISS.(keep it simple)

Finally I got a call that the loom had been moved to the new building. I had a warp ready and my husband and I drove out. I knew I was going to need someone to hold the shafts while I fixed them onto the loom. I also thought if it took a long time to do, we would stay overnight in a motel and finish the next day, but I took nothing for and overnight stay. My husband, however, took his overnight bag. We arrived about noon on Wednesday.

They had built a platform for the loom to display it. This necessitated some acrobatics to get around and not fall off while warping.

Notice the loom had a very high back beam. I imagine this makes a firmer beat because the beater is hitting at an angle. There was a slot in the warp beam where a piece comes out and it fits back in having the warp looped around it rather than a rod and/or apron. This wastes a lot of warp behind the heddles, but I decided to use it anyway. I had made an eight yard warp and I began to doubt anyone else would ever be weaving on this. No cranks to rotate the beams, rather you stick a dowel in a hole to rotate it.

As soon as I hung the shafts I realized that the heddles were not moveable. To thread the shafts behind, I had to go through the one(s) in front. OMG! This was going to take a while. My husband was recruited to hand me the threads from the cross. (It was still faster than me doing it alone.) At 7 pm- we decided we were almost finished threading through the heddles and it was time to go to the motel and eat supper. I was beginning to wonder if this project was possible.

Next morning we started again at 10 a.m. I finished threading, sleyed it, tied a rod on to the cloth beam, tied on the warp and finally started to weave. Found a few threading mistakes and a few crossed warps. The length between the beater and the front beam was very narrow. This was really a one-of-a-kind loom. And I really respect the ancestor that wanted to weave so much that she wove on it…..

I finished at 4 pm, and we left. I was deeply satisfied that I actually had woven something, a twill no less.