Hi all,

I am new here, and also new at weaving altho I have been fascinated and wanting to weave for many years, so my wonderful husband bought me a loom :) It is a floor loom and very large, altho not really tall. My question is this: I thought it would be a four-harness loom, but it actually has 6 treadles, which I found out is not uncommon, but... as far as I can tell from looking at pictures on the internet (which is not incredibly well!!!), 6-treadle looms generally have four shafts or harnesses and the extra treadles are attached to harnesses which are already attached to other treadles and all this is so that one can weave tabby without too much trouble. However, my loom also has 6 harnesses, and I can't really see how that would work if they are for tabby weaving because it seems that having the threads run through 2 harnesses would interfere with the process, because the holes in the heddles are really very short.

 

So I am puzzled about this, and would be very grateful for any thoughts people who know about these things might have!

 

Other than that, I am a mother of 2 in college and still homeschooling two; we live in the country and are probably an hour away from the nearest weaver(s). 

 

Thanks so much!

 

Annie

Comments

Mon, 04/29/2013 - 03:24

SallyE (not verified)

First, before anything else, the rule is that each thread runs through one and only one shaft!   (A set of shafts is called a harness, although you will see the words used interchangeably quite often.)  The only exception to the rule is on a draw loom, which has two harnesses - two sets of shafts.   But don't worry about this now.



Now, getting back to your original question.   It is common for 4 shaft looms to have 6 treddles.   That allows you to, for example, set up a twill on 4 shafts and treddle it with 4 treddles, and then use the remaining 2 treddles for tabby.  Some looms have 4 shafts and 4 treddles, so doing the same thing requires you to press two treddles at the same time for tabby.

 



Note that a single shaft can be tied to multiple treddles, and each treddle can have multiple shafts tied to it.

 


But you have 6 shafts and 6 treddles.   So if you set up a 6 shaft twill, you would have to press 3 treddles at a time for tabby.   This might be difficult since you probably have only two feet!   (You could set up your tie-up so that two of the treddles you need for tabby are beside each other.)

 


But for now, the best things to do is to start weaving with 4 of the 6 shafts.   You could spend your whole weaving life with just 4 shafts and still never do everything, so don't worry about that.   At some point in the future, you could add two treddles.   Treddles are the easiest things to add later to a loom.

 

Welcome to weaving!   It's great fun.

Mon, 04/29/2013 - 09:45

ReedGuy

One thing to make a little more clarity is that the thread of yarn (warp end) passess through all the shafts. The part of the shaft that is responsible for taking the warp end up and down is the heddle. You put one warp end into one heddle eye.*** The other ends pass through the same shaft, but not the same heddle on the shaft. So when a particular shaft rises or falls the threaded warp moves with that shaft, but the adjacent thread moves with the shaft it was threaded with and slips by it's adjacent threads without interference in the motion of the shafts. The range of motion of the shafts going up and down is restricted by the length of the heddles on the shaft bars, not the eyes. If the heddle is 12 inches long, than the warp end will move up or down 6 inches from it's idle position, less the width of the shaft bars. If a warp end is not threaded into a heddle it will be stationary. It would only move if warp ends got crossed when threading. All the ends have to pass-through all the shafts, they do not go under or over them.

If you say that only one warp end goes through a shaft that is confusing if your not an experienced weaver.

***This is not a hard rule, as you may have a fine yarn where you want to double up to increase 'set' and strength at the selvedges. Although 'set' (ends per inch) is controlled at the reed.

Mon, 04/29/2013 - 12:34

Annie 12

Thanks so much, Sally and Reedguy :) You each explained a lot, very clearly! I will probably have a lot of trouble getting the terms right for a while--maybe I should label the parts of my loom so I can learn them better! Well, I am very excited about this! I have always wanted to do overshot patterns so I am planning to make placemats and table runners. Maybe I will start with some that are tabby to get used to weaving and then re-tie the treadles for the overshot. But for now my goal is to get the loom put together and to re-arrange to room so the loom will fit into a corner as the only place it fits now is in the middle! Thanks so much for explaining about the loom :)
Mon, 04/29/2013 - 13:16

SallyE (not verified)

Reed guy said it better than I did!   When I said that each thread goes  through only one shaft, I meant that it goes through a heddle on only one shaft.   The threads  have to go through all the shafts in order to get to the reed and breast beam, but they just go through the frame of the other shafts, not the heddles.

BTW, what kind of loom do you have?

 

Mon, 04/29/2013 - 14:24

laurafry

Treadles are not specifically for any one tie up but to help control the movement of the shafts.  The fact that most 4 shaft looms have six treadles just means you have 6 different options for shaft combinations, part of which might be plain weave, or not.

Does your 6 shaft loom have the ability to tie up more than one shaft per treadle?  Other wise you simply use two feet to lift the combination of shafts for each pick.

Yes, weaving has its own terminology.  Good idea to get a few books and learn the language in order to make communication on the internet (which is largely text based) go more smoothly!  ;)

Welcome to the wonderful world of weaving.

cheers,

Laura

Tue, 04/30/2013 - 15:07

sequel (not verified)

What kind of loom do you have?  Some sinking shed looms (Normalo and David come to mind) have lamms, that can be tied singly or in multiples.  I've not done it, my Normalo is in storage awaiting a larger studio, but a photo of your loom might help us.  Usually sinking shed looms have springs or elastic at the top of the loom which hold the shafts up until treadled downward.

Tue, 04/30/2013 - 17:08

sarahnopp (not verified)

Labelling things is an excellent idea. If you were to start studying another language, one of the tips you get is to mark everything in your house with the word in the other language so you get familiar and comfortable with them. 

In fact, I did this, and I found it super helpful to label my loom parts when I started. Get an experienced weaver friend over for a labelling party and label everything. This is a new (old) language after all. 

Wed, 05/01/2013 - 20:25

Annie 12

Thanks everyone :) The loom is not a certain manufactured type but hand-made, altho it is not at all primitive, iyswm. I do want to post photos, because that might help make my questions easier to understand. My husband is showing me a video of a lady named Elizabeth Wagner threading the heddles, and hers look like mine, altho mine are stickier than hers are.
Thu, 05/02/2013 - 01:13

sandra.eberhar…

One key thing that has been mentioned is do you have lamms?  Lamms are sticks of wood that are hinged to one side of the frame between the treadles and harness frames.  They allow you to tie more than one treadle to each harness.  Without lamms, each treadle is tied to one harness, and you need to press more than one treadle at a time to pattern.  If you can add pictures of your loom, it wil help us help you.