Nadine, I'd love to hear more about your experience working in the business that had such fancy looms! What sort of business, what did you do in it, what sort of weaving did you produce, etc. Sounds very interesting.
I did production weaving for a company called The Designery, in Sandwich, NH, which is a very cute traditional New England village which is mostly shops now and heavily a tourist attraction. In fact people who live within the village cannot do anything to their houses unless it gets reviewed and approved by the historical society first! I did mostly all hand weaving as they quickly discovered that chenille was my particular area of 'expertise'. They actually had me sit and weave in the shop on days they were expecting bus tours to come through, or on weekends during heavy tourist times; people would buy things I was weaving before they were off the loom! On the floor at the shop we had about 6 looms ranging in size from an 8 harness baby wolf, and old 4 harness 35" and 45", up to a 60" 12 harness. The floor dobby was 16 harness Schact. Most of the looms were Harrisville Design which is a very old New Hampshire company which produces looms and equipment. We would often have various things dressed onto the different looms and could swap back and forth between looms for a more 'exciting' display for the tourists. The rest of the time I wove at home. During business hours the owners wore kilts, or traditional New England heritage type dress. On a personal level it was rarely 'creative' as the owner would hand you a box of materials and a pattern and that is what you wove. This shop was touted as the oldest continually run weaving facility in NH and was housed at that time in a very old boys school (very interesting old building - and the first boys boarding school in NH). I also wove things like table linens, shawls, and fabric yardage for shirts, skirts, light jackets, etc. One of their specialties was tartans, and they had a tailer in-house, who specialized in sewing them; they of course also made 'vintage type' shirts to go with the kilts or for historical reenactors. Because of their complexity the tartans were all woven on the mechanical dobby AVLs. There were a lot of special orders placed, especially for fabrics and table linens - which we wove as ordered. One of the great fun times I had was doing a custom room-sized rug order on the 12 foot wide hand loom! The people who ordered it had a living room which looked out over a lake and they wanted the rug to reflect the colors of the lake and trees, but would not get more specific so I had free rein on this one! This loom actually had air assist available for both lifting he harnesses (no way you could physically lift those harnesses!) and throwing the shuttle, but when doing a heavy rug you could not use the air assist on the shuttle and had to hand throw it 12 feet! Then of course walk back and forth to retrieve and throw it again! You definitely had to wear good shoes for days on that loom! :) That loom was also used to reproduce overshot coverlets. It was a great learning time. There was me on the floor looms, and another person on the big AVLs. One of the clerks then also started weaving on the floor looms. It was a very sad day when the folks who owned it decided to moved south. They decided to not sell the business, they only sold the buildings and effectively shut down this old tradition. A couple of us wanted to try and buy the business, and actually got the historical society to decide to try and move on it because of its historical significance ... but to no avail. They simply would not sell. They sold off all of the looms and left. Very sad.
Now I have some things in an artisan gallery and find that chenille is still the big seller! I can't sell table linens at this place to save my life. I also do shawls out of various materials and those sell reasonably well, though not enough for me to stop working a day job! Another shop is interested in my work so we are currently working out the details. I am hopeful that this shop might sell more of a variety of things - but time will tell.
Nadine Nadine Chounet Painted Knoll Farm New Hampton, NH [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.paintedknollfarm.net/index.html To stop mail temporarily mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: set nomail To restore send: set mail
