Loom Love

I overhauled my loom this morning. It's something I had intended to do soon anyway, because the shafts had begun sticking a bit and I needed to remove them and spray silicone in the races again. Thought I could put it off a bit longer, though.

Then just this morning, weaving up the last few inches of the last piece on the dupioni silk warp, I knocked over my cup of hot mocha, which was up on the castle! OMG, what a mess! I daubed up what I could with a towel and sponge, finished off the piece, and cut the batch off the loom...then proceeded to tear the loom apart and clean every inch of it. This was probably the best cleaning it's had in the six years I've had the loom, so the task certainly wasn't for naught.

Sometimes I wish I had a different loom -- I have a few minor complaints about my Schacht Mighty Wolf, often it seems as though others' looms are better or more professional than mine, I lust over what jacquard weavers are able to do with their looms. Just your basic, plain ol' loom envy.

So it's a good exercise to get down and dirty with mine -- because it really is a lovely loom, a beautiful piece of equipment, it's light weight, easy to use, and can do what I need and want it to do. In the end, and putting aside all the bells and whistles that bigger/more shaft/jacquard/computerized looms have and what can be produced on them, in the end it is about the weaver, not the loom. It's what one does with the equipment, not the equipment itself.

My Mighty Wolf is likely the only loom I'll ever own, so I'm committing myself to it, warts and all. It may not be perfect, but neither am I!