Leicester Dryad Countermarche Loom Repaired

A while ago, my friend Erin gave me her first loom when she decided to purchase a new one. Since she didn't have room for two, her Leicester Dryad countermarche loom moved to my studio.

My friend Marcia comes to my open studio every Tuesday, and I told her I would give her the loom if she wanted to help me get it working again. We spent last week working on putting Texsolv onto the loom, since I had stripped off all the cording.

Marcia purchased metal rod for the front and back aprons, so one of the first things we did was to replace the thin dowel in the apron hems.

We got all the Texsolv cording measured and installed. In order to get everything functioning and tied up correctly, we needed a warp on the loom. We made a quick one yard test warp. 

Countermarche and counterbalance looms need to be tied up from the top down after a warp is wound on the loom and threaded.

We tied a basic four shaft, six treadle tie-up and Marcia played around with the treadling. Her sample is quite colorful.

Our biggest job was ahead of us. There are two hinges on the loom. This one pictured is ok, but the one on the other side was not secure because a big chunk of the wood cracked at the screw holes and one of the screws was missing.

We had to unscrew the top three screws on both hinges so we could access the underside of the board to make the repairs.

The break goes through all three screw holes, with the piece completely broken off at the left hand hole.

We raided Bob's workshop for drill bits, wood glue, drywall screws and various other tools plus toothpicks from the kitchen.

This is the underside of the side board showing the broken piece. I pre-drilled three holes between the three hinge screw holes and countersunk the holes. The drywall screws worked well to draw the glued broken piece up tight.

Marcia finished attaching the piece.

As badly broken as it was, the repair looks pretty good.

We added toothpicks and glue, broken off in the screw holes, to give a better grip for the hinge screws. They went in without any problems.

Another problem we needed to take care of was to drill two more holes in the treadles. The tie-up cords were not able to connect directly under the lamms. They were pulling toward the front of the loom, making the shafts hit the beater and the lamms bump each other. I'm not sure why the loom was made that way, but the two additional holes made everything line up correctly.

We used pointed dowels through the correct holes in the Texsolv cord. One is visible under the treadle. We may need to do some slight adjustments once Marcia winds her next warp. We couldn't test our changes since we needed to remove the remainder of the warp to do the repairs.

The tie-up looks pretty good. This is taken from the side, showing the upper and lower lamms and the treadles.

This is the connecting point for the upper and lower lamms.

The last thing we fixed was the missing beater stop peg. Bob had some dowel the correct size in the workshop, so it was a quick fix, with Marcia doing a little sanding until it fit in the hole firmly.

All in all, I think we make a good team working on repairs.

Next week's project will be having Marcia wind a warp for her first handwoven dishtowels.

A Good Day for Teaching Weaving

Our son David and his family came for a short visit last night on their way to the UP to go camping.  This morning, while everyone was getting ready to go, I had an opportunity for another teachable moment with granddaughter Morgan.  She got to help me with finishing my last rug on the Weaver's Delight.  When we ran out of fabric for the tubes, I made some more strips and she helped me prepare them into a long strip to load into the tubes.

Here she is on the pink pony, finishing loading a tube.  I think she thought it was a pretty neat tool.

After finishing that project, we heard a commotion outside and walked out to the road to see a car burning a few doors down.  Just a little bit of excitement to start the day!  I have no idea whose car it was or the cause of the fire.  We watched (from a distance) as the fire spread more and more and eventually blew out three of the tires.

 I have had my sister-in-law Mary's Leicester Dryad countermarche loom for several years.  It was the first loom for me to ever use.  She was over recently and I asked her if she was ready to learn to weave.  Since I'm home all the time now, it is easier to fit into our schedules.  After everyone left for camping, we got to business winding a warp for a rayon chenille scarf.

Mary is a great student and grasped the warping concept right away.  I was able to go about my business doing other weaving things while she wound her two bouts of warp.

After we had lunch, we brought the warp to the loom and got it wound on the the back.  Having an assistant certainly makes the warping and winding go faster.  I showed her the back to front method.  We used the lease stick holding device and a 1/2" spacing raddle to spread the warp.

That was about all I was able to do in one day.  I was happy everything went so smoothly.  On Mary's next visit, we will tackle threading and sleying the reed and running a small sample of both plain weave and twill.  I am going to try 20 ends per inch, but think it may be a little too much at least for the plain weave. After doing a little sampling, we may end up resleying the reed to spread it out a little.  I'm looking forward to having someone come weave with me.  My project is on the loom next to hers on the left side of the photo.

If you think this loom looks a little odd, you are right.  It is only good for short warps because the front and back beams are also the cloth beams.  It is not a good loom for long warps because of the thickness that builds up on the beams.  It also doesn't have a brake release, so I will be showing her how live weight tensioning will solve that problem and make the loom very easy to use.

Now I am tired and it is nap time!  All in all, a great day!

Emily Starts Weaving a Scarf

A couple weekends ago, the weekend of the big snowstorm, our granddaughter Emily was over, and asked if she would be able to weave a scarf.

She picked out some pretty chenille yarn, and I helped her design her warp.  She picked white, a varigated purple, and mint green, and got most of it on the warping board before she had to go home.

Emily was back over this weekend, so I showed her how to tie her warp, so it could be removed from the pegs without becoming a tangled mess.

Here she is starting to wind the warp on the back of the loom.  She's  learning lots of new terminology along the way.

Here she is with the warp almost all wound onto the back.  Three pound weights helped keep everything under control.  No glitches so far!

I helped her with the threading, with one of us on each side of the loom.  We did half the warp on Saturday night, and then today, we reversed positions, and finished the threading.  It gave her some experience with choosing the next yarn from the cross on the lease sticks, and then choosing the correct heddle and threading it with the hook.

I showed her how to tie the warp onto the front of the loom, but did it myself, since she hasn't mastered the tight knot-tying skill yet.

Here Emily is starting the weaving.  This is an odd little loom (a Leicester Dryad, 4 shaft countermarche), with no brake release. While she got started with the weaving, I set up the live-weight tensioning on the back (note the bar-bell weight dangling down on the rope).  With the live-weights, this has been an ideal loom for the kids, since they can easily wind their work forward without help.

This is an easy weave, with just plain weave, so she can concentrate on learning the proper way to hold and throw the shuttle, and where to put her hand on the beater.

 I'm having her use paperclip temples to help keep her edges straight.  She was able to get about 5" woven before we had to stop for dinner, and go home.  Hopefully she will have it done soon, or at least by next winter!