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Paddle Tape Loom

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weaverpa	Paddle Tape Loom	Lead	[-]
Posts: 458 Feb 26 09 4:39 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Tags : None My Dad just made me this loom. We know that it is a very old style on loom, but how old is our question. Do any of you know anything about the history of this loom? Especially those of you over seas from the US. I'm pretty sure that it was used over there long before we used it here. Here is a pic on it with a tape on it that I am weaving. I plan to use the first tapes I weave to decorate the outside seams of my boys braintan pants. Hopefully they will be moving so fast that no one gets a good up close look at my first weaving. lol Last Edited By: weaverpa Feb 26 09 4:45 PM. Edited 1 time.
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Eric Methven		#1	[-]
Posts: 925 Feb 27 09 8:29 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Aha! I've just made a few of these. The correct name is a 'Rigid Heddle'. Here's a PDF file on it. They are documented as far back as the 1300's, but I know the Saami people (or their ancestors) of northern Scandinavia were using exactly the same type as far back as the bronze age (3200 BC - 1200 BC) and these were made from antler and whale bone. Now you know it's proper name, you should find lots more history about it on the Interweb. Eric With age comes skills, such as the ability to multitask. I can now cough, sneeze, fart and pee my pants all at the same time!
Eric Methven		#2	[-]
Posts: 925 Feb 27 09 8:46 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've done some more searching and found this early illustration of a Pueblo woman using a rigid heddle "PUEBLO WOMAN WORKING HEDDLE IN WEAVING A BELT Someone has said that "weaving is the climax of textile industry." It is an art practiced by all savage tribes and doubtless was known before the dawn of history. The art is but a development of mat-making and basketry, using threads formed or made by spinning in place of coarser filaments." That is taken from a Project Gutenberg book HERE. There's lots more out there just for the Googling. Have fun, Eric With age comes skills, such as the ability to multitask. I can now cough, sneeze, fart and pee my pants all at the same time!
Eric Methven		#3	[-]
Posts: 925 Feb 27 09 10:21 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I went an took a couple of photos of one of my leather ones. You can see that they work exactly the same principle - just the scale is different. Mine were made for simple woven bands. Yours could be used for making scarves or wide belts or carrying staps and tump lines. Eric With age comes skills, such as the ability to multitask. I can now cough, sneeze, fart and pee my pants all at the same time!
weaverpa		#4	[-]
Posts: 458 Feb 28 09 4:48 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Thank you!! Eric Yours look very nice. Mine fits between my knees and is stationary as I weave. Do you lift yours up and down as you would a rigid heddle? weaverpa
Eric Methven		#5	[-]
Posts: 925 Mar 1 09 2:39 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Yes, mine moves up and down to create the sheds. How on earth do you make the sheds on yours if it sits between your knees? Eric With age comes skills, such as the ability to multitask. I can now cough, sneeze, fart and pee my pants all at the same time!
weaverpa		#6	[-]
Posts: 458 Mar 1 09 8:43 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Eric Methven wrote: Yes, mine moves up and down to create the sheds. How on earth do you make the sheds on yours if it sits between your knees? Eric Eric, Maybe the pictures I posted on this thread will be helpful. I really enjoy weaving this way. http://thebuckrub.proboards91.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=other&thread=1238&page=1
Wulf16		#7	[-]
Posts: 327 Mar 1 09 9:14 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I just checked out that thread you linked... That looks like fun! I should try to make one of the looms.... after I get a ton of other projects done, lol. Thanks for posting the info! "Do not be bound by the limits you place on yourself. It is only when you reach beyond what you think you can do that you will almost surely do far more than you thought you could." ~Chiungalla, A Sorrow in Our Heart
asemery		#8	[-]
Posts: 117 Mar 2 09 5:04 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Popsicle Stick Loom
Eric Methven		#9	[-]
Posts: 925 Mar 2 09 2:01 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	asemery wrote: Popsicle Stick Loom Yup, made them as kids and didn't realise it wasn't just a game. With age comes skills, such as the ability to multitask. I can now cough, sneeze, fart and pee my pants all at the same time!
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asemery		#10	[-]
Posts: 117 Mar 2 09 4:06 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The popsicle stick loom is an easy way to introduce simple weaving to children. An instructional toy. Tony
kcwoodzman		#11	[-]
Posts: 36 Mar 3 09 9:02 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've always seen that referred to as a Back Strap Loom. They are very prevelant in Central and South America. http://www.snomnh.ou.edu/collections-research/cr-sub/ethnology/mayan/Technology/Backstrap.html You can lace a heddle onto half the warps and it's a lot easier to get a bigger shed quicker. You can also use the paddle itself to creat the shed http://www.bobscrafts.com/bobstuff/backstrp.htm Jared
weaverpa		#12	[-]
Posts: 458 Mar 3 09 1:43 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Yes, the Popsicle loom is great for kids and fun for adults too. All of these are technically rigid heddles. A backstrap loom uses a rigid heddle (Backstrap weaving has been done all over the world, but when it is mentioned one always thinks of the people of Central and South America because they are very skilled backstrap weavers), the paddle loom is a type of rigid heddle which was very popular in the early US. However, very little is written about them and very seldem do you find two existing ones that are alike. Some of them are roughly hewn out of a old board, and some are beautiful carved with flowers and patterns on the board. One thing that I find neat about weaving is that there are so many ways to weave. I have two inkle looms, which by the way were not made until the 1930's. My children weave on them. I can weave on them, but I do not find them as enjoyable as the paddle loom to weave on. They both make the same narrow tapes. Most people that use a paddle loom use the shuttle (paddle)to open the shed. I just like using the ruler. It just a personal preferance. The purpose of the paddle tape loom is not to get big wide weavings, but a narrow tape weavings. These were used on many things years ago and were costly to buy and also not always available. Rigid heddles are still used today on table top looms and some floor looms. You can use up to four rigid heddles on one loom. Maybe you could use more, but using even four of them would require a skilled weaver.
Eric Methven		#13	[-]
Posts: 925 Mar 3 09 5:31 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	That leather rigid heddle is also very useful when starting of a piece of weaving on the warp weighted loom. I make a tape as normal, but when I am passing the weft through the shed, I take it way out across the other side of the room and pass it over a broom handle tied to the back of two chairs, then back again and so on until I have the tape complete but with maybe a couple of hundred 20 foot wefts all extending out from one side. I don't actually pass it over the broom handle, but I have it rolled into a large ball and I just throw it over where it hits the back wall and comes rolling back to me to pass through the next shed. Then I tie off the ends (at the broom shank end) into bundles, and cut them where they pass over the broom handle. This allows me about an inch wide tape that I can then sew onto the top bar of the warp loom and the weft becomes the warp threads. Then having already separated the back threads from the front threads when I tied them into bundles, I can easily weigh them and start weaving. I've done the same thing with card weaving and it can give a nice top border to a piece of cloth. I use this method when I am making a Viking kirtle and I just weave it wide enough to go round half my body, but twice as long. Then I fold it in half, make the neck hole and sew the selvages together so there's no possibility of fraying. Then I weave up the sleeves and insert them and it's job done. People often ask me how I get the tablet weave woven in around the bottom of the kirtle. Sometimes I tell them, sometimes I keep them guessing. Eric With age comes skills, such as the ability to multitask. I can now cough, sneeze, fart and pee my pants all at the same time!
Invildr	warp weighted loom	#14	[-]
Posts: 18 Mar 4 09 11:11 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'm in the process of building a warp weighted loom for myself. I do Viking age Norse re-enactment and do my own spinning and tablet weaving. Have you ever made a shaggy cloak? It's a tabby woven rectangle of fabric with tufts of carded wool woven in like rya to make a pile. I understand the tufts could be dyed and the pile trimmed to taste. I'm planning on a cloak like that for myself. I'm always cold and want something I can snuggle up in our wet grey Washington state weather. I don't mind the cold, it's the damp that gets to me. I'm also sourcing some soapstone for carving cooking pots and fat lamps. Lead fishing weights are easiest for warp weights but I have a small child in the house, so I'm looking for something that won't hurt my son if he chews on it. Any ideas? Ingvildr
Eric Methven		#15	[-]
Posts: 925 Mar 4 09 1:35 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The shaggy cloak I made for a friend just had normal wool pushed through with a hook and passed back through with a lark's foot knot, then it was brushed out to make it shaggy. The wool tufts were spaced out at half an inch and it worked pretty well. For loom weights, I use fired clay donut rings. I made them and got a friend to fire them in his kiln. I just took balls of red clay, made a long sausage, cut them into equal size chunks, rolled them into balls so there were no cracks or gaps in them, poked my finger through the middle then twirled them so the gap widened a bit. Then I let them air dry for a week before firing. The easiest way though, is to make up a whole load of small canvas (old denim jeans work too) bags, just the size of a soda can, with draw strings. You buy a case of soda, put the cans in the bags, weave your cloth, then when you are finished, you drink the soda and put the bags away till next time. I've also used tins of soup from my preparedness store. Also they all weigh exactly the same so it's not like going to the beach to find same size pebbles. If you want to use the loom during an historic event, canvas bags work well, and if you don't want to carry soda cans, you can use sand or earth from the site as weights. That way you dump out the bags at the end and it's less to carry home. Anyway, that's how I used to do it. hope it helps. Eric With age comes skills, such as the ability to multitask. I can now cough, sneeze, fart and pee my pants all at the same time!
weaverpa		#16	[-]
Posts: 458 Mar 8 09 7:00 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Eric, Thanks for the idea with the broom handle. I'm not sure I would of ever dreamed that up, but I can see all sorts of possibilities with that. They also made mittens and hats by adding the wool tuffing . There is a special term for it. I can't remember it right now. It sure does make items a whole lot warmer. weaverpa
Eric Methven		#17	[-]
Posts: 925 Mar 10 09 2:51 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	In Viking, the term for the tufted wool clothing is 'rogvarfelðr'. It was a kind of fake fur. It was used a lot on cloaks and there is evidence from Birka that indicate the Rus riding cloaks (Russian Vikings) used this type of rogvarfelðr. Eric With age comes skills, such as the ability to multitask. I can now cough, sneeze, fart and pee my pants all at the same time!
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