First, I don't have a drawloom, but I'm interested in them and I'm thinking of building a simple attachment for one of my looms.   I have been reading "Damask and Opphamta with Weaving Sword or Drawloom" by Lillemore Johansson.  (Opphamta - how do you pronounce that??)   As I read the book, I keep wondering about something.   It seems to me that there isn't really much difference in what you can weave with a drawloom vs. a loom with LOTS of harnesses.   I do understand that the number of harnesses might be prohibitive for various reasons, and the draw mechaism has the ability to compact the space needed for  "harnesses."  I also understand that the draw loom lets you put one warp thread through multiple harnesses - but this seems like this advantage could be accomplished also with just more harnesses - one per thread, for example.  Of course as you approach the maximum amount of control - the ability to control individual warp threads - the draw mechanism is much better than having that many harnesses.   Am I understanding this?

Another question - The book talks about using the regular harnesses for the background and the draw sticks for the pattern.   But they are working with counterbalance looms.   I have an 8 harness jack loom, so I'm thinking that I could put the background on two sturdy draw sticks and use the regular 8 harnesses for just the pattern.   Since I have regular heddles and the draw sticks with the longer loop heddles would hang in front of my regular harnesses, I could easily lift the background sticks (assuming tabby here) and foot control the pattern.  Does this sound right?

So, it seems to me that the main advantage of a draw loom is the ability to weave non-symmetrical patterns, almost like a tapestry weaver does but in a little more mechanized way.   Am I understanding this??

Thanks,

Sally

 

 

Comments

Sun, 08/21/2011 - 19:43

Joanne Hall

Hi Sally,

The first chapter in that book, which gives instructions shows how to weave a simple opphamta weave.  All you need is long eyed heddles on your shafts and the half heddle sticks and a block of thin wood to hold the pattern shed open.  This is also described by the same auther in the first issue of VAV magazine for 2011.  However, since you have a jack loom, your sheds will be very small.  But a shed stick put on end will make the shed large enough to weave.  This will teach you some of the basics of drawloom weaving.  You can also read about it here:

http://glimakrausa.com/learning-drawlooms.html

Joanne

Thu, 08/25/2011 - 19:39

SallyE (not verified)

I have been reading both of the sources you mention.   I still have my original questions, however:

(1) What is the difference in what you can weave with a drawloom vs. a loom with LOTS of harnesses?

(2) Why can't I just put the background on two sturdy draw sticks (in front of my harnesses) and use the regular 8 harnesses (in back) for the pattern harnesses.   Since I have regular heddles and the draw sticks with the longer loop heddles would hang in front of my regular harnesses, I could easily lift the background sticks (assuming tabby here) and foot control the pattern.  Does this sound right?   I think this would allow for the fact that I don't have large eye heddles on the regular harnesses, right?

 

Thu, 08/25/2011 - 20:27

Joanne Hall

Yes, you can do that.  However, it would be a bit tedius and you would be limited to those 8 pattern shafts.  I would not want you do be discouraged with the idea of drawloom weaving if the weaving you set up results in a very slow and "not so fun" way to weave.  Weaving on a drawloom is a lot of fun, is easy and the sheds much easier to make. 

To answer your first question, the drawloom gives you a lot more design flexibility.  For instance, you can be weaving a repeat pattern on your warp, using a graph paper pattern and then at any time, you can put your name or text across your warp. You have much more design capability.

Drawloom weaving is very easy.  I would not want to thread all the shafts necessary on a computer operated loom that would be required to weave even a simple weave of a drawloom.  And, I think that they don't make them with more than 40 shafts. It is usually a jacquard loom which is compared to a drawloom.

Joanne