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