Elaine's weaving

My aunt, Elaine, has been weaving ever since she was six years old. Her parents originally bought this loom for her brother to use. And he used it for years. When he was no longer able to use it she bought it from him & has woven a "few" rugs since then. (Presently six of Elaine's rugs grace my home.) She has taken the occasional break from weaving but she is starting to pick it up again. I was in Kansas City this past weekend & stopped by to watch her weave. She gave me a few weaving lessons. These are the shuttles which are holding the fabric, the weft, that she wove with. She was using six of these for the rug she was making.



This rug is the last one on the loom. There are several rugs already on the loom waiting to be set free! That red string is where she'll cut later to separate the rugs. The black woven area before and after the red string is the rug header.



This string is the warp. The various colors add a pattern to the rugs. Elaine says that Butch helps her thread the warp about every two years, depending on how much she is weaving. There are 336 warp strings! They spend about eight hours over two days to accomplish the threading.





This is a collection of rugs stacked on a shelf already completed.





Elaine devised a system with these color coded pins to mark the length of the rug as she weaves.





She uses the pedals to alternate the warp to weave the rug.



Elaine is trimming the weft as she adds in a new shuttle. She makes rugs from old blankets, blue jeans, donated fabric. Cotton works best.

















The following photos capture Elaine in a sequence of weaving as she passes the shuttle back & forth between the warp. In the next photo she is pulling on the beater bar as she weaves the warp & weft together.





























The loom was built in 1948 in New York. It is a two horse or two harness loom. It is a Union loom model 36.













Butch sat nearby sipping his near beer.









Elaine pins the header & will sew it together to finish the rug. The rug she wove today was about four feet long. That length of rug typically takes her 1 1/2-2 hours to weave. Some rugs have a fringe. She has found most people prefer the rugs without the fringe. When Zeke was a puppy he ruined one of my rugs that Elaine had woven as he loved to chew on that fringe.





Thanks, Elaine, for the weaving demonstration!