Becky shares her experience weaving on a special 220 cm loom, made by AK Snickeri in the 1940’s. This loom was used by Countess Ebba von Eckermann in her weaving business in Ripsa Sweden.
Here is my special very large loom. It was made by AK Snickeri in the 1940’s, and is 220 cm wide. I am eager to tell you its story.
First of all, this is what is on this loom right now.
That is a very long temple!
I love the way fabric looks on the cloth beam.
I had a rare week for myself in my studio in early March of 2020. I was wondering what to weave, so I decided to peruse my old binders from my second decade of weaving and pulled out this one.
Leafing through to see if I had any already planned projects that I had never gotten to.
I found this one! A fun stripe winding, and a combination of plain weave, twill and double weave. I remembered designing it and had always looked forward to getting around to it someday.
I do not have a picture of my cones and warp mill, but I set everything up to wind my warp, and then COVID happened. No more of that precious studio time for about two years. Then I dusted everything off and wound my warp, beamed it and started weaving! Another two years or more, and we may ask, what’s all that stuff at the back of the loom?
I had another warp on this loom for the record 10 years before this one, and finally did weave off some large white tablecloths which are currently in use at our Vävstuga weaving school. I really missed having this “table space” in my studio when the loom was empty, so although I started weaving this new warp, I was in no hurry to finish it. I knew I would need to plan and set up my next project if I were to continue to have that wonderful table space (on top of my warp – yes……)
I originally acquired this loom from Kin Cullen (circled on my early brochure, below). She and her daughter Louise went to Sätergläntan Weaving School in Sweden in the 1970s, and Kin was the one who ultimately encouraged me to go there, which of course was a life changing experience for me, and set me on my life’s path. Her daughter Louise did some work with Countess Ebba von Eckermann (more on her below), Who used this loom and others in her weaving business in Ripsa Sweden.
Here is a poster that has been kept with the loom. Ebba thought she might need a loom in the US, so crated this one up and sent it to Kin, who stored it in her barn in Plainfield Massachusetts for many years. Ebba never came for it, so when I started my weaving business Kin suggested I take the loom, and when I built my house in 1990, I could finally let her know that I had room for such a loom!
Let’s look at a few details – here is a special height adjustment system for the shafts before the invention of texsolv.
This loom has four big beautiful wheels. Since it is so wide, it can be advantageous to lock the beam on both sides when a lot of tension is in use.
The beautiful handwork on this loom includes markings to tell you how the joints fit together.
This detail shows how the beater secures the reed.
The fly shuttle beater has these beautiful leather guides for the cord, originally hemp, but now replaced with texsolv.
This is a special rawhide piece to fling the shuttle from box to box in the fly shuttle beater, beautiful cord bracket at the top of the beater, and right hand side showing the wiggly leather shock absorber.
Here is a link to a film showing the weaving on this loom during my previous project.
I placed two of these brackets on the treadle beam to hold the 220 cm warp sticks.
And of course, I managed to leave out some blue warp threads by mistake, so here is my method for adding them in after the fact.
I have enjoyed looking at this fabric on this loom for over two years, but I’m feeling the itch to weave this project off soon.
Here are a few of the many fabrics I have woven on this full width loom in years past.
About Countess Ebba von Eckermann
(in Swedish)
More Information:
https://handwovenmagazine.com/handwoven-couture-ebba-von-eckermann/
https://skbl.se/en/article/EbbavonEckermann0
https://noba.ac/en/exhibition/ebba-von-eckermann-handwoven-fashion-from-sormland-to-america/
https://www.facebook.com/countessvoneckermann/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fBk3hRr11w
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