[Regia-NA] loom weights

[rmhowe]

Anne Gonnella wrote:
> 
> My loom weights are drawstring bags full of pennies. I don't know how 
> much they weigh offhand, but I adjusted them a few times at the 
> beginning of each project.

This sounds ingenious. :) I should have saved all those used inmate
tobacco bags for the future had I been psychic. They weren't allowed
already rolled cigarettes, probably none at all now. I bet kicking
the habit is tough behind bars.

> I'm almost done with my first broken diamond twill, and I'm not looking 
> forward to finishing it. Like Hazel, it takes me some time to finish 
> each repeat. It isn't that the pattern is difficult, or the warping for 
> that matter, though it did take forever. But managing three heddle bars 
> proved to be very difficult for me. The sheds want to stick worse than 
> with only 1, and I have trouble separating them with each pass. I need a 
> better way to tie my heddles, I know, and I think something like a 
> temple would be extremely helpful. Also, does anyone have experience 
> with setting the warp spacing somehow?
> 
> Bronach
> 
> 
> On Saturday, December 20, 2003, at 05:25 PM, Hazel Uzzell wrote:
> 
>> My loomweights were made by a potter. I have done broken losenge twill 
>> with 3 heddle bars. I didn't find it at all easy! It took me 15mins 
>> for each pattern 'till I got used to it.
>> Cheers,
>> Hazel
>>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>  Anne Gonnella             The Center for Process and Technology
>  gonnella@stsci.edu        http://www.stsci.edu/institute/center
>  x4584                      support@stsci.edu  x4400

There exists a Masters Thesis, unpublished, at the NCSU School of
Textiles library on the archaeological remains of WWLs and their
attendant tools.  I went through it about twenty years ago.
There are very many drawings of weights, swords, loom combs, etc in
it. Perhaps they have it on microfilm. Sometime during the late
1970's. Of course this was done before the computer and the
explosion of interest in reenactment and archaeological technology.
I am still impressed by what I found in it at the time.
Hundreds of illustrations if I recall.

You can search for it below. I went through a couple hundred titles
and didn't see what looked like it off-hand. I believe it concerned
primarily British archaeological sites. Some of which were from
burned houses and everything was left in situ. If the clay wasn't
baked before it was after. Many were triangular as I recall.

http://catalog.lib.ncsu.edu/web2/tramp2.exe/log_in?LOGIN=guest&SERVERS=1home&SETTING_KEY=Files&SCREEN=home.html

Magnus, who has borrowed a PhD thesis from the College of London.