A month ago, we sold our small four harness table loom to help get our electric bill paid. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was what we had to do. Things are very tight for us and well, it wasn’t getting used as much as we had hoped. Still, I hoped and prayed that something might come along and fill the void.
And of course, it did.
Meet Ikea. Our little Ullman Swedish four harness floor loom! Jessy named her Ikea because she comes all apart, she’s lightweight but with nicely manufactured features and has that blond finish like a lot of the Ikea furniture and such is. And of course, it’s Swedish! haha…. I like it, it fits.
And she weaves like a dream! So nice!
We really like the floor style looms rather than the table top models. Some folk prefer the table because they are easier to store and such, but we like being able to use our feet and keep our hands free for the weaving process.
You can see how dainty little Ikea is next to Rosie, our big Union rug loom! Quite a difference.
Ikea actually folds up even more… the picture below shows her with the back beam closed up, making her about 18 inches smaller. The front beam can also come loose and tuck up closer, but that is a lot more work than the back beam. Still, what is really nice is that she can easily slip through a doorway in the house and would be great to take with us to craft shows for demonstrations! That is something we could never do with Rosie!
Now, how did we manage to get her? And on a tight budget??? Well… Craigslist!!!
I tell you, haunting that site nearly every day is a great way to lay and wait and get something good. But you have to be fast. I just happened to see this loom and a lot of other supplies come up in an ad online… and this loom was only $150. I did a little checking and it’s easily a $350 to $400 loom, used! So, right away, I knew… good deal.
And there were other goodies, like a wool picker, warping boards, warp, shuttles and all sorts of goodies. So I called my good friend Justin and we knew we HAD to go up and see this stuff and Justin is just the king of wheeling and dealing! He really is. I had my pay from the junkyard and though it was not much, I hoped that just maybe… maybe… it might be enough!
Justin called right away and the next morning, we were off on our road trip! It was in a community just a bit north of Detroit, so it was a good two hour drive, but we don’t mind. It’s fun to chat and visit and we always have something to rattle on about for hours! (After all we just love homesteading, and weaving and fiber arts and bluegrass and lots of stuff!)
When we arrived… we were greeting by a lovely older woman and her family, working to pack up their GORGIOUS beautiful home… and she had a WHOLE huge walk in closet in the basement devoted to all her crafts… mostly fiber arts! She had THREE lovely spinning wheels, all of which she was keeping. And just so much more. She just had to downsize and really was pleased that we were younger folk interested in the craft. We talked about each of our flocks of sheep and fiber animals, and all we’ve done and such and it was just really nice. I could see that Justin was working her with his charm and she was really liking us… that is a great thing!
She knew what things were worth and so did we, so we didn’t “steal” anything, but lets just say, by the time we were done, there was a lot less she was going to have to pack! By bundling up a lot of things… we managed to get the loom for ourselves for about $70 plus the gas! That was huge! And one these we did get that was a surprise was a set of handmade collectable shuttles by a Californian artisan! Called Little Man shuttles, these things are beautiful! And since the fellow that crafted them, unfortunately passed away a few years, they have become even more collectable and valuable! Justin kept those and much of the other equipment because that was his wish and we got the little loom and it’s warping board! I was so happy! We had another little 4 shaft loom in the house again!!!
Well, it sat there a day or so and I noticed that Jessy kept fussing with it. We determined that it was missing a little spacer to make the uptake crank work properly, so we found a few washers that that did the trick. The warping board was missing some of it’s pegs, so we got a piece of dowel and Maggie cut us up a few to make it work. Jessy soon asked if she could warp it up and I sure wasn’t going to stop her! I love when you see a spark of interest in a kid’s eye… even your grown kid!
She had Ikea warped up in a few hours and then started to thread the reed and heddles. This one is different then our others have been, since it has string heddles! Not so sure that I like them but they do seem to work okay. Jessy thinks it would be good to dye them a light color… so each of the four harnesses has a slightly different shade of heddles. It would make it easier to thread all those!
Once it was all treaded up, she started weaving and my golly! That kid is fast on this loom! She had about 4 or 5 feet woven in a day! Beautiful stuff! All sorts of playing around with different weft materials and patterns. She is hooked! She loves this little loom! She’s tried the big loom but she just doesn’t like the size of it. But this one is perfect! And my gosh, she’s fast and careful on it, I saw only ONE weaving error in her pattern! One! For her first time, and for so much and so fast, I’m just stunned. The hardest thing about a 4 shaft loom is that you have a lot of room for weaving errors. WIth a 2 harness, it’s very hard to make a mistake. There are really only two ways you can go! And her work was just beautiful!
She’s already planning more pieces now that she’s seen the end result. Her next warping is going to be to make a TON of mug rugs! Everyone loves them and we’re sure that they would be easy and quick on our new little loom. Just so happy how things work out. A new loom and our electric bill paid! How wonderful is that!
Here’s a link to a video we posted up on our farm Facebook page!
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