My publisher, lulu.com, updated their website over a month ago. I had no warning they were doing this. In any event, everything stopped working and the link to purchase the PVC Loom book was broken.
I have fixed the link and you should be able to buy the book now.
In other news, we have sold well over 1,500 copies now. Thanks!
Dave
Just had to celebrate this milestone. The counter went to 1000 at lulu.com!!! Not too bad for such an obscure topic. 🙂
I saw some Facebook activity today for the Red Stone Glen Fiber Arts Center. This is Tom Knisley’s new weaving/fiber school created after the Manning’s closed at the end of last year.
Wishing Tom and the gang at Red Stone Glen all the best!
Their website address is http://redstoneglen.com/
-Dave
Well, I made the drive out to the Mannings on Saturday. Figured I should make one last visit to the place where I got my start in Weaving. There wasn’t much left. I bought 2 books. A baby blanket book by Tom Knisley, and a very interesting book on Rural Pennsylvania German Weaving from 1833 to 1857.
Anyway, as you may have heard, Tom will be starting up his own Weaving School soon. A majority of the looms left at the Mannings were scheduled to be moved to the new school sometime soon.
I bought my first loom from the Mannings back in 1981. It was a LeClerc Inca jack loom. 4-shafts, 36 inches wide. I still have it, although it was damaged a little in the flood we had a few years ago. I plan to restore it someday.
I’d like to say, “Thanks!” to the owners and staff of the Mannings for keeping it going these past 30 years. It was a quiet oasis of calm, history, craft, and sentiment. Best of luck to Tom and the new school.
Dave
This one has legs! Great job! See her project at Ravelry.
Check out this project at Ravelry. They created a Pawl and Ratchet using parts from an older loom. Looks fantastic!
This is a neat video from Cotton Clouds showcasing some of their latest loom kits.
Just got a great email from Weaving Today – the Handwoven magazine people.
From the article . . .
Reading drafts is one of the challenging parts of learning to weave, in part because there can be many ways to draft the same pattern. Here’s Laura Fry, expert weaver, teacher, and author of Magic in the Water, to address some common questions about weaving drafts. ––Anita
Sometimes new weavers get a bit confused when reading weaving drafts. These drafts are simply a graphic representation of how the threads move in the particular weave structure being shown.
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| Draft for a 4-shaft straight twill |
The draft consists of four parts. Generally there is a row of four (or more) horizontal bars on which the threading sequence is shown. Think of them as an overhead view of the shafts in the loom. To the right (or left) of these horizontal bars is the section that shows how the shafts are tied up to the treadles. In some cases the tie-up is shown as a solid square or a blank.
More at the above link!
Took this off the 4-shaft PVC Loom to make way for the 8-shaft version. This is a log cabin sample weave I had set up for demos at fiber shows. This only uses 2 shafts and is probably the simplest draft after tabby.
I guess I should spend more time weaving instead of loom building. My selvedge is not the best that it could be. But I love the pattern and how it is created with just one little shift in the order of the threads. You switch from 1,2,1,2, to 2,1,2,1. This happens in both warp and weft to create the pattern. Here is a closer view.
So, I’m making an effort to get the 8-shaft edition of the book completed. I have measured and marked the lines for the 8 shafts on the action board. To do that, I just lined up 8 copper elbows and put a mark on the board at the center point of each elbow.
Then I cannibalized both of my current 4-shaft looms to measure and mark the position of the 8 slider bars.
I’ll post more photos later.
