Vintage Loom

I thought I would share with you a job I had through my work at Texere Yarns, the Mill shop in Bradford. 

They have had a vintage loom in storage for a number of years and I said I would have a go at warping it up to see if it still worked.

The loom is a Dryad Leicester four shaft table loom, it all seemed to function well enough, and although the heddles were obviously old, they were not rusty.  The only thing I had to do was create a set of cross sticks for the warp. 

Once it was warped up I did find that it was not that good at beating into the fell, leaving the weft yarn travelling across the warp curled up in places.  This could be because of the yarn used, a thicker or smoother yarn may work better with the reed, or it may just improve as the cloth builds up.

 

 

 I had more warp ends through each dent than I would usually like, but the shed did not seem to be affected by this.

 

Warped up and ready to go, bit disappointed that this picture is a bit blurry!  The warp was made up of different shades of grey and a lilac, I thought that brighter colours could be added into the weft.

 

I won't be giving up my Ashford anytime soon, I certainly appreciate the smoothness and lightness of use you get from a more modern loom after having a go with this, although I enjoyed the challenge and it was a really interesting experiment.