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Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Like clockwork

A few days ago I got honest with myself and admitted the new LeClerc loom will not fit in my car. I knew I could ask my sister, but her quilting business is so busy she's booked through July. However, no matter which way I measured the back of my car, I was two inches shy. I asked Jan, Tom agreed to lend his truck, and today was the road trip.

I bought this loom sort of locally, from Linda Bertanzetti, who is a nationally known historian, collector, preserver and broker. I should have taken pictures of some of what she has collected and on display, but it was a bit overwhelming, and I was intent on keeping my footing in all the old, restored farm buildings we visited. 



Jan and I set out on a road trip on a beautiful day today. Blue skies, big clouds, leafing trees, nice highway, charming country roads, and a spot on GPS that told us what drive to turn into. Linda, Hal and Jan loaded the loom into Tom's truck, and we came back from Columbiana the same way we went.



My intent was to leave the loom in our drive, for Laura and me to manhandle into the house, but Tom met Jan and me at the house and helped get it in the door and into the "loom room". Laura went in there the other night, inhaled deeply of the smell of thread and announced that now it smelled like a Loom Room in there.

I already ordered a spool rack from the rug loom company on the other side of my state, and I should have that in a week. It has to be built! I bought an electric bobbin winder from Linda today. Back home, I set about accumulating the few missing pieces. I bought forty spools to fill with warp thread with my electric bobbin winder and put on the spool rack to put onto the loom.

I added a LeClerc tension box to the pile I was accumulating at my favorite weaving supply house, and then said Nancy, the clerk, needed to help me. "I need thread guides for nineteen two inch bouts on the LeClerc, so that's nineteen times four, but my calculator is on my phone, and the phone is in my ear!"

A wonderful laugh came over the line. "But you can only fill one bout at a time! Eight thread guides!" I laughed too, and said that was one more fact a massive brain injury stole from me. Nancy knows I am weaving towels on a borrowed loom, and pointed out that all the cross median shuttle throwing already done must be paying off, as I knew exactly what else I needed.


The Loom Room looks cramped now, but I think this time next week it will be a model miniature studio. I looked up "cross median training". Cross training for short. It's like touching your left knee with your right hand. It enhances neuron paths in the brain. Just more physical therapy! Well, mental, this time.

29 comments:

  1. Your new loom looks very nice and how wonderful that you have a room to call a "Loom Room".

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  2. Creating things is good for the brain and spirit. Have fun.

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  3. I am very interested in what you will be making. Please take pictures. I've never used a loom but love the idea. However, it sounds awfully complicated. How did you start? Did someone in your family weave? -Jenn

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    1. My sister and I are self taught. Our aunt an uncle wove and we bought their looms. Our uncle was deep in Alzheimer's and our aunt was overwhelmed, so we did not bother her. We used common sense. No internet in 1980. I'll take lots of pictures for you.

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  4. Hari OM
    So glad you got the help needed and that things are fitting into place, in all respects. It all seems... just right, somehow. YAM xx

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  5. Sounds to me like you've already got all your neurons firing!

    I LOVE that chair with the green frame and sewing fabric seat and back. It's so cheery you must get a jolt of energy just walking in the loom room and seeing it there!

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    1. Well....I bought it because it has wheels. My choices were pink or green. I can't see it when I'm sitting on it.

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  6. Looking forward to seeing that loom in action.

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    1. It's a LeClerc Artistat, and the back and the front each fold up, for minimal storage space. We had one, early on, but sold it in favor of 44" looms. The Artistat is 36", and because of it's fold up construction, not sturdy for heavy production work.

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  7. Can't wait to see what you produce in your loom room!

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  8. I'm glad that you're a weaver again.

    Love,
    Janie

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  9. Brush your teeth with your left hand if your right handed. Little things like that are supposed to form new synapses. It is hard for me to do. My left hand can't do much. Wonder what would happen if you were ambidextrous? Can't wait to see what you'll be turning out with your new loom.

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  10. The Loom Room looks very impressive already! And it looks like you have a good, comfy chair to sit in while weaving.

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  11. Looks like all will be set up soon and you'll be weaving away!

    betty

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  12. Echoing jenny_o: Just reading about the things you have to wrestle with and remember has made both of my brain cells hurt. Your experience and cross training seems to have worked wonders. I am really, really looking forward to hearing/seeing more.

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  13. The Loom Room is looking great! I'm looking forward to seeing your new works. I agree with the others, the things you are doing and remembering far outrank my lazy mind.

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  14. Weaving always seemed to me so complicated, I don't understand a thing but it is so interesting.

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  15. That's exciting! I look forward to seeing the fruit of the loom.

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  16. You sound excited to be back at it Joanne. I am happy for you.

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  17. You are back in your element again....you are radiating happiness.

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  18. You can't keep a good weaver down.

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  19. You are an inspiration, I don't think anything slows you down.

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  20. We do some of that left hand/right knee thing in our falls prevention class. While standing and lowering and standing and lowering again. It's fun I tells ya.

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  21. inhaled deeply of the smell of thread - never thought of thread having a smell. Can't be as good as the smell of bread.

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    1. You have a point. But, it's cotton. Most everyone who has been sent towels writes they want to bury their noses in them all day, or else they want to wear them.

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  22. Yes, and all this is sure paying off. I miss my big loom but not the struggle with the maths to make it work. Bravo to you.

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    1. It's easier to make a little mistake than a big mistake, that's for sure. But, it's only thread. We once were pulling off a hundred yards of a natural warp with a bit of a colored boucle in it, and another weaver friend dropped in and went mad at the waste. She spent the rest of the day chaining off a hundred yards of 22 two inch bouts, and she took them home and used them! One man's waste, etc...

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