Arthur A. Allen Folding Loom Historical Documents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.

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!