:|:|: weaving together! :|:|:

sharing time, expertise, friendship and our love of textiles around a tandem loom

The idea for my Community Loom project was inspired by the conversations about rag weaving that I had over several years with French-Canadian visitors to the farmers’ market in Coventry, Connecticut. These women saw my rag rugs and recalled happy memories of their grandmothers and great-aunts weaving old clothes and sheets into floor rugs, but also into coverlets. Intrigued, I researched these coverlets and discovered that they were called Catalogne. I kept asking questions about them but no one remembered seeing the large looms that were used to weave these large coverlets. Then one day a family from Quebec saw my rugs and started talking excitedly in French. I understood a few words and asked again about the kind of loom that would be used. The eldest laughed and said that, of course, no one would have seen the looms in their homes! The large looms were at the shared building of Les Cercles de Fermieres - the Circle of Quebec Farmers (feminine!). Much like the Grange Halls in the United States, there were many Cercles halls where rural women gathered to cook and preserve food, sew, spin and weave together. They would weave on very wide Clement looms that were fitted with two sets of treadles to accommodate tandem weaving.

Working together is a common tradition in many cultures, especially in rural areas where resources, equipment and expertise can be shared for the common good. I’ve experienced this firsthand in southern Mexican villages where women weave together on backstrap looms tied to a shared tree, and in the weaving rooms in Scandinavia where weavers help each other warp their looms. And in Tibetan carpet-weaving workshops, where two weavers work side-by-side on one rug. Such good memories.

And it occurred to me that I could dedicate my 9-foot-wide Clement loom to a similar shared project. I had never seen a Catalogne, but found students who had a few in their closets who were willing to bring them in for closer inspection. How amazing! Some of them were over 100 years old, woven with 1/2 inch wide strips of linen sheets that were handspun and woven by previous generations. When those sheets wore thin they were cut and woven into coverlets, and were still usable 100 years later. We learned the sett (18 to 24 epi) and the width of the rag (about 1/2 inch) from these old treasures and began to gather our weavers from the local chapter of the Handweavers Guild of Connecticut.

So the next step was to find a community space, which in my town of Old Lyme was our old Grange Hall, recently purchased by our Historical Society. They were very excited to host the loom and our weaving on the main stage of the Hall, against the wonderful backdrop of their original Grand Drape, which was originally installed to advertise local businesses at the Grange meetings. On a direct tie-up four-harness loom with a weaving width of 108 inches and two sets of treadles, we needed two weavers to treadle and one shuttle thrower standing at each end.

And so we began inviting members of the Handweavers Guild of Connecticut to participate. Together we began winding the warp onto the sectional beam, then threading and sleying it in relay teams. In July, 2016 Jody MacBeth Brewer became our first Principal Weaver, and we worked as a rotating team of weavers to help her complete her catalogne. Four more Principal Weavers followed over the next two years, and our sixth catalogne was woven together as a parting gift to the Old Lyme Historical Society for graciously hosting us. The loom was moved up to my new home in Guilderland, New York, and is being placed in my new home studio in March, 2020. The first Community Loom catalogne planned to start on April 16, 2020 has been cancelled until further notice.

Please go to the Learn More button below, sign into Facebook and see our posts to learn more about this project. Please consider joining us. New and experienced weavers are welcome!

2024 A new home for the Community Loom! It is now located in my hayloft studio in Cambridge (Coila), New York. I will post updates on Facebook and this page.

Working together we beamed on, threaded and sleyed 1,944 ends of 8/2 cotton warp.