Our weekend was weird. That's just the truth. Nothing we had planned materialized--too much rain, conflicting schedules, etc., EXCEPT...a trip to the annual Haiti Benefit Auction in Shipshewana, where I was the sudden unexpecting owner of something I hadn't foreseen purchasing. Here is a hint: the following picture is of my "old" loom--a Little Dandy made by Reed Loom Company, Springfield, Ohio. My mom purchased this for me about 25 years ago at a garage sale. The owner was so helpful and made me a spool rack (background), new parts to replace broken pieces, shuttles, and a stretcher bar. He even came and helped me set it up and warp it.
However in the intervening years, parts grew old and no one around here is a mechanic. I was at the point of sort of "fighting" with it to weave. Still I am fond of the old loom. Also the reed had rusted and they are not inexpensive--just one more cost to consider. My daughter and I began warping it two years ago and this is as far as we got. Warping is not an easy job. It is a good little loom, though and kind of a friend to me--made a lot of quality rugs, placemats, and coasters through the years. When we went to Bible college a friend "adopted" it for the year to give it a home and it became the producer of roving rugs because they owned Jacob sheep and had to have something to do with all the beautiful roving they had. I got a nice roving rug as a "thank you" when the year was over, and interestingly, our Bible college was only a few miles from Springfield, Ohio, where the loom was originally made. We often did our grocery shopping in Springfield that year!
THE NEW LOOM
We got to the benefit sale Saturday morning and almost immediatley I spotted an antique loom listed on the sale bill coming up within the next hour. I saw it sitting amongst pieces of new furniture and waiting to be owned. I inspected it as carefully as I could since others were around and didn't seem to be moving out of the way. It looked really good. Some features that needed repair on my old loom were already present and in good working order on this one. Plus it had a new reed and an old one (pictured on the bench), a bench, and two shuttles. I quickly did some investigating (oh, the wonders of internet) and estimated a good price considering the difficulty and/or shipping costs of buying one from a distance. The reed is the last place the threads feed through before the weaving begins. It separates the threads and looks a lot like a comb.
This new old loom is a Union Loom No. 36---a popular model that is probably quite old. It is a bit wider than my old one and has capacity for an attached spool rack. The heddles are newer and not rusted and neither were the reeds. The reeds were different sizes---good deal again. The heddles are long wires with a hole in the center and hang on the harnesses. They are basically thread guides or carriers. The threads feed through half on each harness. This makes the opening for the rags to be fed through when the harnesses are rasied and lowered.
The auctioneer was slow in getting a starting bid, but when he did I jumped in quickly. I was amazed when the bidding stopped at a lower-than-I-expected price and I was the new owner! The biggest drawback was that I had to go home and get our decrepit truck and make a trip back to Shipshewana (praying the truck would cooperate) to retrieve the loom yet that afternoon. Clint was shocked as he didn't expect me to buy it either!
Here is another view of it in it's new home a few yards from the old loom in our basement. My husband got quite a few of these "loud" pieces of rug for his hunting blinds last fall and I really like the pattern, so it became the new rug for under the Union 36!
Here's a picture of a rug I made years ago on the Little Dandy. It is draped over the Union 36. The rug is mostly new cotton strips I tore and sewed up from my sewing scraps. When I sew, all small, striplike scraps are tossed into a bag for future rug making. I like this throw rug a lot.
This rug is actually a "dud." I wove it on the Little Dandy, but didn't use a stretcher or something else went wrong, not really sure. It was done in the early years as I was learning and it is misshapen. You can't tell in this picture, but it is uneven. This one is made of old nylons. The colors are quite attractive and it is a very durable rug, in spite of it's weird shape.
So I'm pretty excited about the new loom, despite the way the rest of the weekend went! I think it was a blessing from God and I know the price I paid for it went straight to missions to bless someone else!
Blessings, LORI
