My name is Steve, owner / designer for WC WORKSHOP, a small niche denim brand from New Hampshire. We specialize in reproducing early 1900s work wear with fabrics hand woven on shuttle looms.
My partner and I are looking for a floor loom for weaving denim with luxurious cottons and hand dyed indigo yarns. The denim will be a heavy weight with a loosely woven twill.
Our question to everyone is which loom would work best for a project like this? I know it will be a slow process but this is a very special market we are in. We spend hours on every piece we make. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your time,
Could anyone with experience in heavy hand woven fabrics please contact us.
williamcarltonworkshop@gmail.com
You'll need a countershed (counterbalance or countermarche) loom with 4 (possibly up to 8) shafts.
You could use a traditional loom with fly shuttle or a barn frame loom fitted with a fly shuttle, or try one of the countershed dobby looms on the market - Louet, LeClercWeavebird, Toika.
Denim is a 3/1 twill with warp effect on one side and weft effect on the other - you don't need lots of technology on the loom -just the right width, good tension and good depth - and some type of production aid to make things run a little faster - either flyshuttle or dobby mechanism.
Thank you for your helpful information. I found a few looms on Craigs list. I'll have to research more counter balance looms. I would prefer an Old traditional loom with a fly shuttle. All our sewing machinery is from the 1940s and older. I found a few looms on Craigs list but nothing special yet.
Are there private workshops that will help you set up for a twill weave?
There are weaving lessons all over the state of New Hampshire. I just want to make sure I take the right one. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
For those of you interested in the project we are trying to hand weave selvedge denim( narrow shuttle loom denim fabrics) using long staple yarn cottons and hand dyed indigo warp yarns. Id like do a low tension weave to make this denim the heaviest and softest.
Thank you,
Steven
wcworkshop.tumblr.com
Check out the Weaver's Friend or Weaver's Delight looms, (made in Springfield, OH starting around the early 1900's). They come up for sale from time to time, and they can go cheap because they are big and heavy (250 pounds). I know one was sitting unsold at an auction house near Milford, PA within the last two years.
These looms have a dog and pawl device that makes for automatic shaft switching when you pull the beater forward, and some of these used looms may still have the fly shuttles. (They can be used without, but it would be much faster with the fly shuttle attachment and shuttles.) Many of the historic sites around me seem to have these looms. Usually they are set up to weave rugs, with a finer carpet warp at an open sett, and cotton or wool rags as weft. However, the woman who originally set up our loom in the 1970's or 80's (she is now 97) has woven finer things with it in the past, like her hand-grown and hand-spun linen.
Janet Meany (Duluth, MN) has an "old loom" website where you can learn a bit more about these looms and similar. If interested, be sure to drop her a line, she may know where there is one in your vicinity, either to try or buy.
I volunteer with the Park Service in Delaware Water Gap Nat'l Park (northern NJ). We have one I can let you weave on and see what you think if you are ever in the vicinity. We also have the actual Deen loom pictured on the Janet Meany site. Similar type loom (but much rarer, as they were made of all metal, and I am told not many survived after the war years.)
One important thing to consider — if you are trying to make a living at this, having a loom that weaves efficiently (and without wearing you out!) might trump having a period-authentic loom, and Sara's recommendations are solid. It might be fun to have an old one in the "front room" with an active warp on it, but I wouldn't want to have a temperamental old loom if I was expected to be cranking out the yardage for customers on deadline.
Regarding weaving classes - you are in a *great* state for access to lots of weavers. I think NH has a guild, (New England most certainly), and guilds are GREAT resources for used looms, workshops, conferences, teaching referrals, books, networking, etc.
BTW, if you are under 40, don't be intimidated by all the grey and white hair at a guild meeting. These people KNOW stuff! My guildmate at 97 can go toe-to-toe with anyone, and our 103-year-old taught the Roosevelt children how to weave at Hyde Park.
Keep us posted where your journey takes you!
Sally
It doesn't sound like you have much breadth of weaving experience. Any decent beginner class should teach you how to weave various 3/1, 2/2, and 1/3 twills, and possibly 2/1 twill. If you already know the basics of weaving on a floor loom, you may be able to get what you need out of a beginning book, such as the ones by Chandler or Ostercamp or Black etc. Contact the NH Weavers Guild for
the name of a teacher near you. Other than the saori-style (which is
not what you are looking for), any of the teachers on this page can help
you -- I know them all to some degree, and they are all knowledgeable
people. Marjie and Mary Ann are particularly history oriented. You could also take the beginner class at NEWS (New England Weavers Seminar at Smith College in July) or Harrisville Designs (Harrisville, NH).
http://www.nhweaversguild.org/links/loca...
http://newenglandweaversseminar.com/
This site has a lot of information about denim weaving:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/53125288/51/DENIM-CONSTRUCTIONS-WEAVES-AND-WEIGHTS
The threads for denim are quite fine, up to 64 ends per inch in the above reference. That is a machine loom sett, so hand would be lower and not as solid a cloth (softer), perhaps 40ish. Denim is meant to be a hard wearing cloth, and is not usually soft.
I am also curious about why you would go for a hand loom for the 1900 period, when factory mill woven was most common. That said, your best bet if you are going for period cachet may be to try to find a "barn frame loom" (aka barn loom). They are what were commonly available in New England through the 1940's. LeClerc looms in Canada have been around since the late 1800s. Take a look at their Colonial or Mira looms. or ask Tom Beaudet to keep an eye out for a period one for you.
http://www.leclerclooms.com/histo/N_B_HI...
Diana Frost of the NHWG and Weavers Guild of Boston keeps a list of looms for sale in New England. Good luck!
Laurie Autio
We have used looms listed on our website and some are in the East.
http://glimakrausa.com/used-looms.html
Joanne
Sally,
Thank you for all the great info. I really appreciate everyones help on here.
I agree with you about the older looms being more of a specialty machine. It takes about 3 yards of narrow denim to make one pair of jeans so this will definitely be time consuming.
We have an agent right now searching the world for an old draper power loom. Im very excited about this.
New Hampshire does indeed have a weavers guild so I'll look into that as well. Thank you!
I am 28 years old. Im sure I'll have no problem talking to the older folks. I ride a 1940's bicycle, wear a gents cap, and love everything old from antiques to the classic techniques used by skilled craftsman.
Who knows maybe I'll meet someone that wants to work for us.
Always looking for skilled craftsmen.
weavers, pattern makers, sample makers, sewing experts, tailors, natural dyeing
We are working on opening a one stop workshop for denim jeans. In the shop skilled artisans will be dyeing our warps with natural indigo, sun bleaching our weft yarns, weaving our own fabric on hand and old power looms. Hand casting our rivets and buttons and sewing the jeans. Our jeans now are 21 ounces. This is 2-3 times as thick as your average pair of jeans. The cotton is Extra Long staple supima. The weave is not as tight and rigid as you'd think. The fabric has a slight dry hand but the inner weft side of the denim feels like cashmere. There is no other fabric like it. We had this fabric custom made and would like to re produce it ourselves here in New England.
When you talk about high-end handweaving and marketing prowess with a speciality towards menswear, three names come to mind. Check out their websites. IMHO, it seems to me there is a bit of a self-perpetuating "glass ceiling" in the handweaving world, and these folks have managed to pierce it.
-Frittelli and Lockwood
-Randall Darwall
-Jhane Barnes (although her current collection doesn't necessarily show her early weaving roots. She started on AVLs, got involved with fractals/computers early on, does most of her stuff overseas now.)
DO seriously pursue learning all you can about weaving. That process will certainly open doors for you—
Sally
This sounds all too familiar. Within the last year, I got involved with someone in California with similar ambitions. After many exchanges, it seemed that part of the desire to produce fabric and pants of this type was fueled by a company in England that made heavy denim pants for men that didn't last as long as advertised. I forget the company name, but when I checked them out, they were bragging about the long stapled cotton they use which "allowed the thread to be softly spun". Well, there you have it on the longevity issue - ANY soft twist cotton, especially in the warp, will make for a more delicate fabric. After a long discussion, our conclusion was that as far as price/performance goes, a pair of $30-40 Dickies at Sears or Fleet Farm was the better bargain.
What you're describing has a delicious air about it, BUT - skilled craftsmen and handworkers need training and experience. Your Draper loom will need serious maintenance.Your production handloom will of necessity be an old world production loom - the big 4-shaft countermarche with fly shuttle that is seldom understood by the "guilds" that consist of nice ladies who never deal with production of textiles in any quantity. You need a higher level of help in textiles. May I suggest some places on the East Coast that might be of interest:
1. FIT - Fashion Inistitute in NYC. They have experts and classes in textile production and fabric science. The fabric science part is something not taught outside of degreed textile programs. NCState in NC, RI School of Design and Philadelphia University also have such programs. This would be invaluable to you in learning about fibers, spinning techniques, fabric finishing, etc.
2. Weaving instruction, including older techniques:
Becky Ashenden - vavstuga.com (Sshelburne, MA)
Kate Smith - eatonhilltextiles.com (Marshfield School of Weaving)Marshfield, VT
Tom Kneisley at the Mannings, East Berlin, PA
3. Niche Mill experience
Bethanne Knudsen - Oriole Mill, Hendersonville, NC
http://www.thejacquardcenter.com/mills.htm
These are persons and institutions that work at the level you need to succeed in your endeavors. Somewhere in that mix, you should also find help in sourcing your yarns. Don't just believe what the sales person tells you. Certainly, lots of luck with this - would be cool to see an ad for your product some day. Just take it from someone who has "gone backward for the simplicity" for nearly 40 years, it is an expensive way to go, filled with steep learning curves and setbacks at every turn. You'll have to work smarter AND harder.
I second the recommendation for Becky at Vavstuga in Mass.
Joanne
Great resources and links! Thanks again everyone.
I really enjoyed the Fritelli and Lockwood website.
Im going to take a class or two and in the meantime maybe try to find a weaver, mill or old mill worker that wants to collaborate on this fabric development.
I do not want to mass produce this fabric on projectile looms. That would be too easy. So, Im reaching out to the experienced cottage weavers of america.
Maybe there is someone out there with passion in denim weaving here in New England.
Thanks!
And one more reference:
Here's a professionally trained European cottage weaver with very efficient production techniques.
For what you want to do - any "studio" working on jack looms and using warping boards is not just retro, but not making use of the professional tools that production weavers should be using.
