Arthur A. Allen Folding Loom Historical Documents

         I am SO excited.  I sold the loom to a good friend and hand-spinner, so I know it will be well loved.  That is not really why I am SO excited though.  I am SO excited because the good friend and hand-spinner from whom I bought the loom originally is moving to Portland.  That part is sad, but leads to the exciting moment of her finding the paper-work about the Arthur A. Allen Folding Loom which she had promised to give me when she sold me the loom originally.

          It is funny as well as exciting because there seems to be a  history of delaying the forwarding of these documents--she handed them to me in an envelope addressed to her from the then previous owner with a note that says:

     I will have to include a similar note to the new owner! But FIRST I am going to scan and document these things, because when I searched the inter-webs I found nada/zilch/nuffin about these looms except for other people asking for information about them.  

    I think THIS note was from the previous, previous (previous) owner.  Susan Lilly still has a website, at weavingroom.com which I am going to go check out a little more closely very soon to read about her garment construction books, but back to the note:

       I visited the Historic Looms of America Website just now. While they do have much worthwhile information about historic looms, they do not have any information on the Arthur A. Allen Loom posted. I imagine it is just too small a company to have been prioritized as of yet. Hence, I am going to attempt to scan it for you.* I will do it page by page, as I think it will be too small to see in its adorable original 7" x 11" folded into thirds size.  

 

 

 

It really just explains how to warp it.  The rest is up to you. Hurrah!  Golly gee, it never occurred to me to fold it to make reaching the heddles easier while warping.

I have been saving the best for last.  Well, actually I am saving the best until I can go to the library tomorrow and see if I can find this on microfilm to get a complete copy.  This article appears to have appeared in the Sunday Oregonian Magazine in August 1944.  The last bit is missing front this copy, and it is pretty poorly reproduced here, so let's cross our fingers and just check out this teaser:

Hurrah, indeed! 

Hmm just found this link to Popular mechanics as well. Now, there's a rabbit hole....

*No copyright infringement at all is intended.  I suspect I am in the clear, as this is pretty old, and I am surely not making any money from this, but thought I should mention that.

Weaving Around

          Sooooo, I just purposely deleted a half-finished (incredibly funny, of course) post from 5 months ago. It was all about those dishtowels I showed you the wound warp pictures of.  Since then I can hardly believe how many projects I have done on my lovely, mid-century vintage Arthur A. Allen folding floor loom.  Which brings me to a big sigh.

SIGH

          I need to sell it.  The good news is that it is because I love weaving so much that I have purchased a different loom.  I am hoping that I have moved up a mini-notch on the loom ladder and not just betrayed my one true love.  Time will tell.

SIGH

          So this post is going to be all about how I have improved and woven on this loom for my exciting first year of discovery of weaving around the weaving world. It may well need to turn into several posts. Or if I do manage it all at once, feel free to skim and/or read it over several visits!

SIGH
   
          I bought this loom and immediately signed up for a 3 day intermediate weaving class at fiber arts retreat called Fiber In The Forest, run by the local weaving shop, The Eugene Textile Center.  I figured I had better whip something out pretty quickly at home in Rose Cottage before driving into the wilds of Oregon with it to be sure I could get the thing to function at all!

Weaving Tips I learned from this project:

*Handwoven dish-towels are 110% better than store-bought.

*I love weaving!

In the collage below, look at the pictures counterclockwise starting with the cones of yarn on the stairs

Weaving tips I learned from this project: 

*You can take apart your teeny warping board and screw it to your fence to make it larger. 

 *You can also use it to hold your reed on a table to sley the reed.

 *Using 2 very different threads in your warp is extremely difficult because they would be happier with different tensions. 

*Doubleweave weaving is difficult, but fun.  

*You CAN do a 3/1 treading on this loom even though it is counterbalance, but you have to watch the shed carefully (especially if you can't get the tension tight enough). 

*Madelyn VanDerHooght is an excellent teacher.

*This loom needed a little TLC and rehabilitation.

      So, upon return from Fiber in The Forest I set about the beginning of the loom rehabilitation.  Overall it was in great shape, but the wax cotton cords for the treadle tie ups, roller bars/harness hangers were gross and hard to handle.  Also, the brake didn't work very well, which really contributed to my tension problems.  Over the course of the year I managed to fix all of those things to my great satisfaction (just in time to sell it). This collage makes it look like it was all really fast, but it took several projects to identify problems, a lot of head scratching, trips to various shops and plenty of help with tool loans and a second set of hands from my handy husband.

Arthur A. Allen Counterbalance Loom Rehabilitation Tips:

*Don't try super-gluing sandpaper around your back beam to increase friction on the friction brake. It helps for about 5 minutes, then you can't get it off easily.

*Heater hose from your local funky auto parts store is the perfect replacement for the rubber tubing.

*Use a couple of zip-ties to replace the wax-string wrapping that keeps the tube bent around the bolt (you'll understand this only if you are actually rehabilitating one of these).

*Attach the brake tubing to the spring with a tiny cheap something that opens--try various size carabiners--to get the exact right tension and make it easy to remove rather than lashing the darn thing through the spring-end-hole (again, this will only make sense if you really need it to)

*You don't need little plastic connectors for Texsolv cords.  Use loops (see top center) and the holes.

* I re-inforce sewed the apron/wavy metal rod then lashed on a hollow 1/2" aluminum rod cut to length for a normal apron rod (you can see a tiny end of it sticking out of the cardboard by the brake)  You could remove the canvas aprons, but I like to keep as much intact on vintage things as possible.

*It's worth it and you feel good about yourself when you accomplish little mechanical tasks.

          Wow, I feel like I am starting to weave around nearly literally after staring at the computer screen so long.  Perhaps now is a good time to pause and publish. Given my previous record on "coming right back" to the blog, perhaps I should end with one shot of the loom in full, just in case I don't make it back super soon. If you have any specific questions about any of these things, shoot me a comment!

Now, wouldn't she look cute in YOUR craft space?

Fleece out,

LauraRose

There's No Place Like Home

That was a very pleasant vacation seeing some new towns like Bloomington,

and Indianapolis;

knitting--and finishing-- my Knit-1-Below leg warmers in the rental car on the way through Ohio;

being taken care of by my folks for two weeks back at the cottage on Lake Erie;  

eating the original Buffalo wings at the Anchor Bar;

and hanging out in good old Wash, PA.

 I say "good old," but, dang it has really grown with all this natural gas drilling and fracking going on.  I almost fell out of the car driving around -- there are OUTLET STORES for goodness sakes.  There were people from OTHER COUNTRIES in the AT&T store. Seriously astounding.

Anyhow, we made it back only an hour late on United. The trip out on American was perfect. And the staff was friendly (and existent). I'm so glad American is flying into Eugene now.  We are definitely going to continue to try to avoid United. 

Anyhow, anyhow, we got back and the next day I went to Eugene Textile Center to get a cone of black 10/2 Pearl cotton to go with my other Lunatic Fringe yarns which I had left from my Fiber In the Forest doubleweave class with Madelyn VanDerHooght last spring. Now, that was a totally awesome class, and I learned a ton and a half, but it was seriously a bit over my head. I was so excited about weaving after that though that I was acting like a crazy chicken. I knew I needed to do something a little more basic, but what? Did I want to try to do handspun? Did I want to try some more basic dish towels? Wool or cotton? Did I want to do different threadings? So many options! Of course the result was, I didn't do anything until now.

While I was toiling back along the rails to trails bike path from Ridgeway to my folks' cottage on Silver Bay on a cranky old bike one chilly day on vacation I kept my mind off the sore parts by planning out my next project.  Doing multiplication while riding is recommended only on easy trails!  I finally decided to use the beautiful Lunatic Fringe Cotton for some multicolored dish towels where I could try different treadlings on one tie up. I used our delay "due to weather" in bright and sunny SanFrancisco, to type up my plan on my iPad.  My mental math was right, I was pleased to find. 

I grabbed my tiny warping board, which I have taken apart, and screwed it to the fence with the sides a yard apart to make it bigger.  Now this worked great the first time I did it, last spring for FITF,  

but this time the screws (which I had not too intelligently put back in the same holes in the fence) started stripping out on the right side so that edge started leaning in and the threads kept sliding off the pegs which are a little shorter than I would like anyhow since it is only a small warping board. I just kept powering through because I didn't know what else to do.  Of course the last half of the warp ended up being about 8" shorter than the first half.  If I hadn't been in a panic (did I mention I was outside and it was getting dark and I had to go to my piano class?)

 I might have realized I could just stop that warp and start a second one for the rest.  I know that's what "people" do for big warps, but "I" have never done that in my vast warping experience (I think this is warp #5).  It turns out I could even have done the colors separately.  So much to learn.  I had "heard" all of this, but it's not until you really experience something that it thoroughly sinks in.  Next time I will think in smaller warp chunks (392 ends was probably a bit much for my short pegs even if they hadn't started to come out of the wall) and be sure my warping board is really secure. Oh, yeah, and don't start later than 12:30 pm.  

It was hard to chain t off the board because of the sliding issue, but I managed it.  Whew. 

I suppose 8" of loom waste is a very small price to pay for the education.  

The saga continues in the next installment!

On The Road

I have never tried to blog on my mobile tablet device, so I am about to find out how it works.

The Yarn Harlot says she now only ever wears brown on airplanes, so given that she and  I seem to share a propensity for spilling coffe on ourselves, I decided to follow her brilliant advice.  The best part was that, since it would have been OK to spill, I never even did so all day!

I did take a picture of my knitting in LAX  (using the camera on my mobile tablet device) while we waited for our flight.  Let's see if I can upload it to the blog now.

*****time passes. I attempt to use a googleplus app to backup and access my camera roll on my mobile tablet device*****knock me over and fan me with a brick; it actually worked!

RIBBING FINISHED--about to begin K1, K1below vertical stripes

Seth and I were the only ones doing anything other than just sitting/eating or looking at their phones or other mobile devices (she says self-righteously as she taps away on her mobile tablet device on the coffeeshop's free wi-fi.

So we spent the night at the Grant Street Inn in Bloomington, Indiana. It was very nice and conveniently located. Of course most things are pretty convenient here as it's fairly small.  Actually it's a really lovely Midwestern mid-sized town.  Lots of nice shops in the downtown area.  One of which was a very nice LYS called Yarns Unlimited just off the courthouse square.  I had a moment of fear that it had closed because the street numbering was weird--even numbers on one block and odd on the next.  It is at 115 Walnut and there was an empty storefront next to 118!  Luckily we persevered.  I bought 3 skeins of locally dyed organic cotton/bamboo worsted weight yarn.  Ohh I'll take a photo! 

*******time passes, photo taken, photo uploaded ******

******oh crap,  just lost another 1/2 hour work on this--photos, writing, the works******

  We are here to meet a student to help get his bass all set up nicely and then we are stealing it to put it in the instrument competition at the Violin Society of America convention in Indianapolis.  Seth is 

almost done and the Soma coffee shop has gotten about 10 bucks out of me, and I  am about to throw this mobile tablet device in the trash.  I think it's time for some actual hands on leg warmer knitting time!

******* got Seth, got bass, ate a a sweet place called Finch's Brasserie, drove to "Indy", ensconced self on couch of adorable little VRBO 2 person house in a regular old real neighborhood just south of downtown , heated up ginger tea from Soma; now to find out if maybe this works better if not sharing wireless*******

Well, I got the links to work, but you just can scroll up and down at all. And on the MTD (mobile tablet device) there are no up and down arrows on the keyboard. I am going to try again to get the pictures in here.

*******manages to add 2 pictures in "only" 15 min.******

It is DEFinately time to put down the MTD and pick up my DPNs!!!

Fiber Financed My Fair Foray

In Washington, PA, my hometown, and seat of the county government we had an awesome County Fair.  There were so many animals and exhibits it easily took all day to see everything. I don't know if it's still awesome as it was in the 1970s an 1980s, but The Lane County Fair seems shockingly small to me given the square miles of Washington county are 861 and Lane County comes in at 4,722.

Anyhow, I decided to do my bit for the exhibits and entered 10 things in the textiles show.

We had fun treasure hunting for my 10 items.  I just had to fix the collar on this one though!

Hey, lady, read the sign!

In Wash., PA, you got a free day pass for entering--here you still have to pay your 9 bucks to get in. So I was very excited to see all the ribbons I won.

My cash prizes added up to $33, which was exactly enough to pay my and my friend Dominique's way in, buy a funnel cake, and ride the ferris wheel!

We could hear Pat Benatar playing her show from the ferris wheel.  That was pretty cool for us girls of the 80's.

Crooked Seamed Scottish Bear didn't win anything, but she did enjoy watching the world go by from the safety of her glass case.  She was, however, a little concerned with the psychiatric health of the purple crocheted snowman given the heat that week.

I received 3 First Place,  2 Second, 2 Third, an honorable mention and a Donor Award.  

There's no band night, or demolition derby, or truck pulls or anything at the Lane County Fair, but it's better than nothing, and a pretty good deal for just doing my bit!  If you are reading this from Lane County, enter some things next year to bulk up the exhibits.

Just be sure your entries are not a nice as mine!