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And just as you've set up your Glimakra counterbalance, I'm contemplating trading my all-refurbished Bergman counterbalance for an 8-harness Bergman countermarch loom.
Last summer, I took my loom apart, sanded and refinished all the maple and beautiful clear fir, and reassembled it, replacing all the string heddles and hardware and most of the tie-up. All that remains is to replace the canvas apron on the cloth beam.
For a Northwest native like I, it's extra special to have a Bergman loom. Margaret Bergman was born in Sweden and came to the United States in 1901, when she was 30, to marry a man who had come seven years before. They settled with other Scandinavians near the town of Poulsbo (across Puget Sound from Seattle), built a home, cleared land for farming, and raised six children. She wove all the years she was raising her family, and then began teaching all around the Pacific Northwest. Her husband started building looms to meet student demand, and she improved on the design, developing several looms that would fold up, even while warped. She's the only woman in the US to receive a loom patent. She was honored at the National Weavers' Conference in 1947 for her contribution to American weavers. Eventually her son Arthur Bergman took over the family business, building Bergman looms until the early 1970s.
My loom was surplused from a high school art classroom. My father-in-law purchased it, but it sat in their basement, unused, until I married into the family. When my son (your son-in-law) was newborn, I got all the books our library had on weaving, and would go to their house each day. And while he napped beside me in his infant seat, I worked on my very first placemats. They weren't pretty, but I learned a lot and was ready (humbled) for classes from a pro. We spent that summer at a Boy Scout camp at the foot of Mt. St. Helens (this was 13 years before it erupted). The only way into the camp was a 5-mile hike or a mile by boat across Spirit Lake, so loom and baby made the first of three annual voyages to spend summer in the woods while dad ran the camp.
With a history like that, it tugs at my heartstrings to think of trading the loom away. And now, I just got the phone call: the 8-harness loom's been sold to someone else. So at least THAT decision's made. Besides, who needs so many harnesses? Think of the amazing things we've woven with four.
Weave on! Buffy
you guys inspire me. I already knit a kaffe coat, back in the 80s (it's on my ravelry page, and i think we're ravfriends?) and i, too, was able to show it to him some 20+ years later, in a color (quilt) workshop a couple of years ago. now i read that you too, are from the northwest and have had a loom folded up for years, waiting...
ReplyDeletei bought a Leclerc 4-harness table loom for $75 last new year's when north carolina my friend at john c. campbell folk school was deascessioning it (apparently weaving gets grants and donations and she's thankfully able to update their heavily-used looms quite often.) i have never woven, but was thinking in that direction and had not even received yet the ashford knitter's loom i'd just bought from a fellow raveler. but when i saw the LeClerc on sale for pennies on the dollar i asked my friend if this wasn't something i'd be kicking myself for not grabbing in a couple of years, when i'd graduated to it. she just nodded; i just grabbed!
i have yet to use either one, and the table loom is presently balanced in my fiber studio as a sculptural centerpiece--since i have no memory of how it actually went together to be serviceable--but I bought a book, and you remind me that someday.... meanwhile, i don't retire for another decade (i hope).