On Saturday I visited The National Museum of the American Coverlet located in Bedford, PA. The current exhibit is called Stay at Home and Use Me Well -- Flax and Fleece: Fiber to Fabric. On this day the museum was hosting the Colonial Coverlet Guild of America (a Chicago-based organization) which included a presentation by Ron Walter, a special exhibition tour let by Ron and show & tell. This was an all day event.
Stay at Home and Use Me Well showcases items from the collection of Kitty Bell and Ron Walter. The name of the exhibit was inspired by a flax hetchel or hatchel owned by Kitty & Ron that was made near Burrillville, Rhode Island dated May 18, 1797 and inscribed with the names of Mathewson and Lyda Mathewson with Stay at Home and Use Me Well.The exhibit was extremely informative. One exhibition room was dedicated to the entire process of linen and cloth production from plant or animal to the finished yarn. Ron's collection included a variety of spinning wheels and winders. There were wool wheels, flax wheels, production wheels, a pendulum wheel, and several long-bed spindle wheels where the spindle travels on a three-wheeled trolley. Ron also had a large collection of spinning wheel heads.The coverlets in the collection are of two types which they call geometric and figured and fancy. The geometric have pattern motifs based on circles and squares, woven by both men and women, mostly for use at home. The figured and fancy coverlets have ornate motifs of florals, animals, buildings, etc. and were made by men who were professional weavers mostly woven with the help of a Jacquard mechanism.
This Early American loom owned by the museum came with a Jacquard head they hope to install soon. Sitting on the bench are punched cards read by the Jacquard machine containing the pattern draft. This mechanism can raise or lower a single thread. It will be exciting to see it in operation.I purchased Ron Walter's book, of the same title as the exhibit, in the museums gift shop and it is worth every penny.
This turned out to be a very special day, one I shall remember. We had beautiful weather for the ride there and back and I traveled with friends who I very much enjoyed their company. We felt very welcome and met some wonderful people.
In a previous post I wrote about my Adventures in Overshot. In that post I mentioned Helene Bress whose coverlet books were so helpful to me. Helene will be our guest speaker at tomorrow's guild meeting. I am so looking forward to it.
The project was still on my Loomcraft and I decided to cut the warp off the loom and move it over to the "new to me" Glimakra. Boy was that an exercise. I recreated the cross on the Loomcraft then created a warp chain. I attached the trapeze to the Glimakra and weighted the warp. The rattle was attached to the back beam.The cross was pulled forward and tied it to the loom frame.The harnesses were hung and the heddles threaded.The reed was sleyed. The warp was attached to the front beam. The countermarch unit is installed, the cords are in place and the treadles are all tied up.
Here she is all finished. The pattern is best known by the name of "Pine Bloom" (an old Appalachian draft). The warp is 10/2 unmercerized cotton, the weft is 20/2 unmercerized cotton and the pattern weft is 5/2 mercerized cotton. I have enough warp to weave another one.
After my last post I got busy cleaning my "new to me" Glimakra. When they say the Glimakra is just a bunch of sticks this is what they mean. It's amazing how the loom can be broken down into a bunch of sticks. I cleaned every wood surface. Joanne Hall recommends cleaning the parts with vinegar and water. I did this until I ran out of vinegar then switched to Dawn dish washing soap and water. I then wiped the wood surface with 100% Tung Oil from LeeValley.To learn more about the construction and care of Glimakra looms visit this page on Joanne's site.
I set her up all by myself in the spare bedroom but already moved her to the living room. This time with the help of my DH.I'm in the process of outfitting her with Texsolv tie up cord. After washing and organizing the Texsolv heddles I ended up with ~ 850. I ordered 200 more from Earth Guild because that is what I will need for my next project. This loom is typically sold with 11" heddles but mine were 12 1/2". I guess the shorter length will give you a larger shed. Any shed on this Glimakra will be bigger than what I had on any of my jack looms. I cut this warp off my 45" Loomcraft. It started out as 6 yards. I'm using a trapeze. I need to decide if I will set the loom up as counterbalance or countermarch. My project is a 45" square Overshot. I should still have enough warp for 2 squares.
Did I need another loom? Not particularly. Did I want to own a Glimakra? You betcha! It helps having friends who are bad influences. I got an email about a loom in the Philadelphia area for a very good price. It was a 40" wide, 8-shaft, counterbalance and countermarch Glimakra with no extra accessories like reeds. Turns out someone else got the loom.
I looked on the Spinners', Weavers' & Knitters' Housecleaning Pages and found a 47" 8 harness, 10 treadle Glimakra for an even better price. This one is counterbalance but came with 6 stainless steel reeds and a few other extras. If I add the countermarch parts I will still come out ahead. This loom was located about 30 minutes north of Philadelphia. My bad influence friend and I went on a road trip a few days later and brought her home.
Here she is before taking her apart. The loom needs a good cleaning. It was filthy. Here is the bad influence helping me load the loom into my SUV. This is everything. I actually had room for another Glimakra with room to spare. I was pretty tired by the time I got home so she had to sleep in my SUV last night (The loom not the bad influence!) Actually she may have to sleep there again tonight. The bad influence and I had a fun time. I picked her up at 7am, it took a little over 3 hours to get there, we spent about 2 hours taking her all apart and loading her up, we ate lunch at Olive Garden, then had a long drive home. We got hung up in some slow traffic. I pulled into the driveway a little after 6pm.
I did manage to wash all the Texsolv heddles and cords last night. The water turned black instantly. They are all nice and clean now. I don't want to bring the other pieces into the house until they have had a good cleaning.
It has all its original parts including the owner's manual but the lady did keep the packing sticks. Grumble, grumble. It was made ~ 1981. It is missing a few pieces here and there. Just minor stuff. I've already been in touch with Joanne Hall about replacement parts. She responded to my email quickly. I've only heard good things about Joanne and her husband Ed. It's refreshing to get good customer service these days. I'm working on a list that will include the countermarch upgrade. I plan on getting her up and running as counterbalance then transition to countermarch.
Finished teaching a 4-day Nantucket basket class. It ended up everyone worked on a different project. I was very pleased with how the baskets turned out.
Karen with her 16-inch oval tray with Wenge wooden base. Marea with her 6-inch open round. Her first basket. Jenny with her 12-inch oval tray with quarter-sawn Sycamore base. Stephanie's finished 6.5-inch mini-market basket with oak staves and Gaboon ebony base. I enjoyed sewing the Toile de Jouy fabric liner. Kirby with his 7-inch oval. Penne with her 10-inch open round. Jennifer with her 8-inch oval. She will be finishing it at home.
I went to lunch today with two of my fiber friends who commented that I have not updated my blog in a while. Even though I've been very busy they were right. So here you go Pru and Nadine, this post is for you.
I very much enjoyed a guild road trip to the Lost River Museum in West Virginia and learning about two Mennonite women (Ora and Lynn Tusing) who lived up on Branch Mountain near Mathias in Hardy County, WV. overlooking the Lost River Valley. You can see a photo album from the visit here.
I fell for the coverlet sample Priscilla Blosser-Rainey wove on the sister’s loom using the remaining warp that was on the loom when the museum acquired it from the Tusing sister’s estate. The warp is 40/2 linen and the weft is Harrisville 2-ply doubled. The draft is the sister’s favorite which they called Glaring Flower (a.k.a. Pine Burr/Pine Cone Bloom/Pine Bloom).
When I saw the pattern of the sister’s favorite draft embroidered on a piece of muslin hanging over the loom I knew I had to weave it. Did I mention I never wove Overshot before?
I set out to learn all I could about the Overshot weaving structure. I exchanged a few emails with Priscilla who said the coverlet is treadled “tromp as writ” and tabby is 1&2 and 3&4. I also had discussions with Beth, our guild president, who showed me, in the draft and the pictures I took, that Pine Bloom contains tables and crosses. Reading the draft (click any picture to enlarge) if you start where it says “Begin Here” you would start out treadling 1&4 - 8 times, followed by 2&3 - 4 times, next 1&4 - 8 times, and so on. The four Overshot blocks are A=1&3, B=2&3, C=2&4, and D=1&4 with tabby 1&2 and 3&4 as mentioned. Since I’m a visual person I wanted to graph out one full repeat. Here is what I came up with (click to enlarge).
I soon discovered the Tusing sister’s draft did not conform to traditional contemporary Overshot where the 4 blocks are 1&2, 2&3, 3&4, and 4&1 with tabby being 1&3 and 2&4. I also discovered all the blocks did not share a common thread between sequential blocks like traditional Overshot. Looking at the picture you can see the few blocks that do overlap are identified with a heavy X and blocks that don’t, have the adjoining threads boxed in with pencil. Underneath each block I wrote how many threads made up the block repeat and circled the number. I thought I must be doing something wrong! This is really weird! On a trip to The Mannings I brought along my worksheet and the Tusing sister’s draft to see if Tom Knisley could take a look. Tom said the way I was approaching it was correct.
My plan is to weave this on my Loomcraft loom which has a maximum weaving width of 45”. I needed to figure out how many repeats of the tables and crosses I could have. I settled on Partial Table, Cross, Table, Cross, Table, Cross, Table, Cross, Partial Table (reversed). All the numbers on the lower left of the worksheet contain my calculations of how many heddles I would need on each of the harnesses. The total came out to 1,067 ends. Sett @ 24 epi (12 dent reed – 2 ends per dent). I am using 10/2 cotton for warp, 20/2 cotton for tabby weft, and 5/2 cotton for pattern weft. Beth came over to help me wind the warp since she has a warping mill. We decided on 6 yards which would give me 3 separate squares of the pattern. The warping mill made a quick job of it and now I am a convert.
I was still feeling uneasy about this draft not conforming to traditional Overshot. Then one night I was looking at The Coverlet Book: Volume 1 – Overshot by Helene Bress. Bingo! I learned that this draft contained a combination of “on-adjacent blocks” (each block has one thread (or harness) in common with its neighboring or adjacent block) and “on-opposites” (opposite blocks are not neighbors and do not have any harnesses in common).
Helene went on to explain imperfections or doublers. If you remove the pattern weft you would find a Plain Weave ground fabric. When two adjacent warp threads ride side-by-side (threaded into the same harness) they interrupt the Plain Weave structure. The two adjacent warp ends rise or fall together. This is called “unsplit doublers”. They will never be separated or split up.
Can doublers be seen with the naked eye? It depends. Often you can’t or don’t but sometimes they show up as a warp-wise (vertical) streak. Helene goes on to say significant doublers are those that occur at the edge of a block, as one block progresses to the next. Doublers are most noticeable when they occur within a block as opposed to at the edge of a block.
One example of an unsplit doubler may be due to a threading error within a block where adjacent threads are threaded through heddles on the same harness. For example, the block should be threaded 4,3,4,3,4,3,4,3 but instead it is threaded 3,4,3,4,4,3,4,3. These threads will rise or fall together when tabby is treadled and tabby will be imperfect. Chances are good you will see a warp-wise streak. If this streak occurred regularly, i.e., within block D of every repeat then most likely there is something going on in the draft as opposed to a threading error.
The Tusing sister’s draft contains another type of doubler called a “split doubler”. Unlike the previous example where adjacent threads are going through the same harness you have adjacent threads going through different harnesses but the threads still rise and fall together. My tabby is 1&2 and 3&4. If you look at my worksheet starting at the top right and move left you start off treadling 2&3 - 4 times followed by 2&4 – 4 times. No problem transitioning blocks here. The blocks share a common thread. Next, we treadle 1&4 – 4 times. Now we have a problem. As discussed, this is an example of “on-opposites”. The adjacent threads are 2&1. When the pattern blocks are treadled the threads will be “split up” because they do not ride together but the doublers do occur in the tabby area since my tabby is 1&2 and 3&4. Since the doublers here occur in the tabby area only, and occur where there is a change of blocks they are less noticeable than unsplit doublers.
Helene says it’s not hard to find drafts with doublers in them and when there are consistent doublers, there is probably a specific reason for their existence. Half the coverlets Helene examined had doublers. She said some even had a tripler or two.
Here is my project on the loom. Whew! No threading errors. This has been a good learning experience.
Stay at Home and Use Me Well showcases items from the collection of Kitty Bell and Ron Walter. The name of the exhibit was inspired by a flax hetchel or hatchel owned by Kitty & Ron that was made near Burrillville, Rhode Island dated May 18, 1797 and inscribed with the names of Mathewson and Lyda Mathewson with Stay at Home and Use Me Well.
The exhibit was extremely informative. One exhibition room was dedicated to the entire process of linen and cloth production from plant or animal to the finished yarn. Ron's collection included a variety of spinning wheels and winders. There were wool wheels, flax wheels, production wheels, a pendulum wheel, and several long-bed spindle wheels where the spindle travels on a three-wheeled trolley. Ron also had a large collection of spinning wheel heads.
The coverlets in the collection are of two types which they call geometric and figured and fancy. The geometric have pattern motifs based on circles and squares, woven by both men and women, mostly for use at home. The figured and fancy coverlets have ornate motifs of florals, animals, buildings, etc. and were made by men who were professional weavers mostly woven with the help of a Jacquard mechanism.
I purchased Ron Walter's book, of the same title as the exhibit, in the museums gift shop and it is worth every penny.
