Saturday, April 26, 2008

More Loom Stuff

I ordered the following things from Yarn Barn in Kansas. They're SUPER NICE. Jim took my order and even speculated with me about how old my loom is. (We think it was probably built in 1971, so it's one year older than me.)

- A set of 6 treadle hooks
- A set of 12 treadle cords
- A set of 2 upper roller cords
- A set of 4 lower roller cords
- 2 45" aprons
- 4 45" steel rods
- 1,000 inserted eye headles
- A 45" 12dpi stainless steel reed
- 2 beater bumpers
- 1 boat shuttle (I already have one at home)
- 1 dozen plastic bobbins

All that was about $500. I might also get a "Shed Regulator" attachment for it later on, but those are over $200 so I'm going to see how I get along without it.
I also got a Louet bobbin winder for the store because I figured if I get good enough at this I'll teach beginner classes and we'll need that thing. I've got the warping board on the back of my Kromski Harp rigid headle loom, so I figure I'm pretty much set up now. I just need to plan out a project.
I was reading about using handpainted yarns as warp, and that sounds pretty cool. I'm thinking about pre-winding a warp with some wool yarn and hand painting it myself, or I have some black and purple alpaca at home that I dyed at yarn school which would make good weft. Maybe I'll try that. It would look pretty cool in a point twill pattern with a hot pink warp.
Oh, and I also found Weavezine. It's kind of like Knitty, but for weavers! I'm hoping they'll have a lot of good beginner info in the issues to come. I'm not a weavecast listener, but it's the same girl behind it if you're familiar with that.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Loom!

Well, it turns out the loom I bought is a Mira instead of a Fanny. No problem! They're really similar. This is what it looked like when we arrived to pick it up.

Loom

Most of the metal parts have a little rust on them, a lot of the nuts and bolts aren't original and dont really fit well, but I have the correct sizes written down from the manual so I can replace those easy peasy with a trip to the hardware store.
As for the loomy parts, the reed is pretty smushed up and rusty and so are all the headles. I'm replacing those, the aprons, (the warp beam has a sectional thing on it that I don't care to use at this point, and the apron on the cloth beam is pretty nasty + frail feeling) all the nylon cords, and I'm adding some beater bumpers.
I'll have another $500 in it before I'm done, but it still comes out at costing me less than half price of a new one. The wood is in pretty good condition - just a little scuffed up here and there.
Does anyone know how to tell how old it is by the serial number? Here's a shot of the sticker on the side:
Mira