Revision in progress   I have been running courses at National Trust's Heritage and Rural Skills Centre at Coleshill and at the Vale and Downland Museum in Wantage for several years.  However, it is hard work loading the looms and other equipment into my car and I had been thinking that it was getting near to the time I stopped. Dislocating my ankle at the end of June bought forward my decision to only teach at home in East Hendred in future.

  Pamela, a member of the Kennet Valley Guild, kindly gave me six rigid heddle looms when I started teaching. I have acquired three more old style ones and have bought a modern one. I also have 2 four shaft looms and an eight shaft one which I use for teaching at home.  Although rigid heddle looms are only designed to do plain weaving, they are a good option for inexperienced weavers as they are easy to set up and new ones are relatively in expensive. 

 

I charge £25 an hour for teaching at home.  During a two hour session you could either weave a small mat on a loom set up for balanced weave or on one set up for weft faced weaving. See below.  If you would like to have a go on a Four Shaft Loom or to weave a picture on a Rigid Heddle Loom set up for weft faced weaving you would need more time

    Heddles raise and lower warp threads during weaving. For a Rigid Heddle loom they are fixed rigidly in a frame know as a reed. The warp threads are threaded alternately through a heddle and through the space between them. The ones in the space do not move when the reed is raised and lowered.

    The old fashioned looms have reeds with 7 heddles per inch. If every slot and hole is threaded, there are 14 warp threads an inch. The warp will show as well as the weft and both contribute to the design. If three ply yarn is used, the spacing will be the same for the warp and weft. This is known as balanced weave and is used for fabrics. See picture below woven with light and dark blue yarns.  (To weave with thicker yarns, a reed with the heddles forther apart is required.  Modern Looms are normally sold with a 7.5 dpi reed (which means that there are 7.5 threads per inch with all slots and heddles threaded). This will give a balance weave with double knitting wool. A range of other reeds are available including 5dpi and 10 dpi.

    When I started using looms with old type of reed, I found them easier to use when teaching children, if I threaded every third hole and slot, which gives a warp spacing of slightly less than 5.  The warp is completely covered by the weft and is known as weft faced weaving. As well as being quicker to put the warp on the loom, it also allows any colours to be used for the weft. See picture woven with pinks below and above

 

 

Weaving pictures

Pictures can be woven on a simple frame.  It can be slow so I teach people how to weave one on a rigid heddle loom set up for weft faced weaving. Choosing a landscape or seascape without steep slopes makes it possible to complete a picture in a few hours whilst practicing techniques which can be used on a simple frame. See pictures for more information. 

The scenes below were woven by people doing my courses at Coleshill. 

After the course, Sandra embroided some of the features from her photo onto the weaving. 

With a Four Shaft Loom the warp threads are all threaded through heddles which are placed on the shafts. One, two or three shafts are raised before putting the weft in place. The warp is also threaded through a reed which spaces it and puts the weft in place. The heddles are free to move sideways which allows a variety of thickness of warp yarns to be used. The dark blue and white sample has been woven on a 4 shaft loom. The twill patterns are formed by the way the warp was threaded and the order in which the shafts were lifted.

 

Interesting patterns can be woven on the rigid heddle using a stick at the back of the loom so that either one thread is up and three down or vice versa.

 

The warp can also be maniupulated  by wrapping the weft round a group of threads (known as Brookes Bouquet - see top of sample).   Alternatively, you can twist the warp (Leno - bottom of sample)