Earlier this year, tapestry tutor and artist Ariana Odell and her dad undertook an exciting project to restore an old loom that had been stored at QPAC for many years. Read on to find out more about the loom, its restoration, and where you can see it in action!
The Restoration
The Loom is a 1939 Harris Loom design – making it 87 years old! It is made of Beech wood, which is strong and durable, and is an eight shaft loom, allowing for lots of different patterns to be woven simply by threading up the loom in different ways. It is perfect for weaving scarves, table runners, cushion covers, tea towels & place mats.
The first step of the restoration was to brush off the years of spiderwebs & dust. The metal shafts, with the heddles & Reed attached, were then taken off to be cleaned in food grade acetic acid, removing the rust buildup that had started in some areas. The wooden frame was washed and, once dry, sprayed with clear varnish to protect it for a long time to come. Finally, the metal levers were sprayed black to stop them from rusting again. Before reassembling everything, Ariana counted the number of heddles per shaft, an important step to prepare for plotting designs onto the loom, since these are what hold the long warp threads in place while weaving.
Although restorations like these can throw up a lot of issues due to all the finely moving parts, the experience Ariana and her dad have gained restoring many other looms, plus the maintained good quality of this particular loom, meant that the restoration went without hitch. Ariana was pleased to see that it was even in good enough condition that re-inserting the shafts was easy to do, as this is often source of difficulty in many similar restorations!
Now that the restoration has been completed, Ariana says she is looking forward to sharing her skills and knowledge with her tapestry students so they can extend their weaving skills too. The loom will be available to observe and use during QPAC’s weekly tapestry class on Mondays 4.30 – 7pm which Ariana has tutored since 2017.
Designing and Weaving for a Harris Tabletop Loom
The fact that this loom has eight shafts enables great flexibility when designing weaves. The shafts, which are brought up and down by the weaver, hold the heddles in place. The heddles consist of a thin wire with a thin hole, or eye, through which the long warp threads (the ones that go lengthways in the loom) are threaded, allowing the weaver to raise and lower sets of threads at a time by raising and lowering the associated shaft. Any even number of shafts can be used when threading up, with different orders and combinations creating different patterns.
The most basic preparation for warping up is to put one thread in each shaft, from 1 to 8 across the whole loom, to create a ‘straight draft’ which results in a plain weave – your classic ‘over, under’ type weave. But even this layout can result in some great patterns such as stripes or tartans by arranging different colour warps in the loom and using different colour wefts (the sideways threads that the weaver adds) as well.
Zigzag patterns can be created by warping up the shafts from 1 to 8 then 8 to 1 repeatedly, and by continuing to alter the ordering, an endless array of options becomes possible! Ariana is still experimenting with all the possibilities of this loom.
The loom is even able to assist with ‘overshot’ designs – a traditional technique that creates raised geometric patterns by ‘floating’ a thicker weft over a foundation of plain weave. This technique enables designers to make stars, roses, diamond patterns and more!
Where this loom differs from many historical looms is that it is a tabletop loom – that is, it is controlled using eight levers that raise and lower the shafts (which in turn hold the heddles), whereas historical looms tended to be much larger floor looms, with many shafts all controlled by the weaver’s feet. The tabletop loom is slower to operate, and since it creates a narrower stretch of fabric, it requires altered designs to fit the size of the fabric created. To combat this, Ariana has modified old, traditional weaves to create more compact, jewel-like versions of the motifs – essentially forcing her to find the essence of the patterns and repeats rather than using traditional weave designs as they were used historically. These designs are usually drawn out on paper to figure out the warping orders, but there again, Ariana has been using modern methods to try out designs using digital spreadsheets before committing to pen, paper or thread! Below, you can see the drafted digital pattern alongside the woven effect on the Harris Loom.
You can see the loom in action this Saturday, 12 September at the QPAC Open Day! Ariana will be demonstrating from 11am – 2pm. Alongside Ariana’s demonstration, there will also be jewellery making, woodwork and sewing demonstrations, plus a family pottery activity, badge making, taster sessions, workshops, exhibitions and meet-the-artist opportunities as well as live music and theatre! It’ll be a great opportunity to see everything that goes on at QPAC. We can’t wait to welcome you in!