Old and New Footage of Warp-weighted Looms

      You can see an old documentary, on YouTube as "Åkleveving på oppstadgogn (stumfilm)" on the Norsk Folkemuseum channel, about a warp-weighted loom here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a19lGJGOZWY.  It is a silent film.  It is not in English and the only text I recognized was the word krokbragd, which is a weave structure, and the name Marta Hoffmann, a weaver who wrote a book called The warp-weighted loom; studies in the history and technology of an ancient implement.  Some of the book's images are photos taken when the documentary was filmed, and the book has an account of the steps the weavers took.  A viewer took the text from the film, typed the text into Google Translate, and posted the results in the comments.

     If you are not familiar with warp-weighted looms, its design goes back to antiquity.  A warp is the arrangement of threads running lengthwise on the loom and in this case the warp runs vertically, not horizontally like it does on a modern floor loom, a table loom or an ancient ground loom.  There are weights that put tension on the warp and hold it in position.

     The book of Proverbs in the Bible describes an ideal woman who spins and weaves.  The author states that "her arms are strong for her tasks" (Pr 31:17b NIV).  I was interested to see in this film how physically demanding it was for the two women to set up a warp-weighted loom and weave with it.  I think that the author of Proverbs thought of the ideal woman as using a warp-weighted loom because he states that she makes coverings for her bed.  A warp-weighted loom is very suitable for making a bed covering because it is wide enough to make a piece without having to seam two widths together or having to use the double weave technique as you would on a floor loom.  Hoffmann gives widths of beams of various historical looms and most are at least 200 cm (78.75 inches).  This is the width of the loom, not the width which you can weave.  The loom's design appears to lend itself to two weavers passing the weft bobbin (ud'do) through the shed across the full width of the warp and beating it into place in sections with the sword.  A handweaver on a floor loom is naturally limited in how far she can throw the shuttle that holds the weft.  Also, in my experience, the wider the warp on a floor loom, the more difficult it is to beat the cloth and thus the looser the weave.

     Marta Hoffmann's book is out of print and expensive to buy used.  Somewhat less expensive but still pricey is a book by Hildur Hákonardóttir, Elizabeth Johnston, and Marta Klove Juuhl, called Oppstadveven.  The English title is The Warp-weighted Loom.  As I write this, the Vesterheim museum store is taking pre-orders for the new printing.  

     You can see a preview of some pages of Oppstadveven on the website of the publisher, Skald.  Page 141 is interesting because it shows how to use a specialized combination of warping board and rigid heddle loom to weave a narrow strip with extra-long weft threads coming off the side.  These threads become the warp of the piece on the warp-weighted loom.  Hoffmann's book shows this as well, calling it a warping frame.  

     Page 144 of the preview has a schematic for building a warp-weighted loom.  Unfortunately the resolution of the image on my screen is not good enough for me to be able to read the measurements, even using the zoom feature.  The schematic is shown on graph paper but I doubt even a really determined person could take the fuzzy image and work out the dimensions by assuming the beam is 200 cm.  (Hoffman gives the crotched supports for the heddle as projecting 30 cm [12 inches] from the uprights and a sword as 90 cm [35.4 inches] long.)  Page 145 has a tantalizing note that the Osterøy museum has a booklet for sale called Oppstadveven by Anna Østerbø Kåstad with the schematic.  The museum is part of Museumssenteret i Hordaland.  I didn't see the booklet on their museum store pages.

     Vesterheim has a couple of warp-weighted loom classes for 2025.  One is for varafell, which I think looks amazing.  It is a traditional technique that produces a cloak that looks like a shaggy sheepskin.  The class' instructor is Marta Klove Juuhl.  She is in this video about varafell, "Frå hand til hand - tekstil kulturarv på Osterøy Museum" on the Museumssenteret i Hordaland channel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlVJpTNsT0k. 

     There are some other videos about varafell on YouTube if you search for them.  It seems that another name for varafell is röggvarfeldur.  Some of the videos show how to use a wool comb to process the double-coated wool.  Double-coated means that the wool has both soft short fibres and long hairy outer fibres.  According to the videos, the undercoat is spun for the weft, some of the outer coat is spun for the warp, and the rest of the outer coat is interlocked as it is into the weft.  I believe the wool is spun in the grease; that is, unwashed.

     A weaver in one of the varafell videos wrote in the video description that she averaged 4 cm (about 1.5 inches) of cloth an hour.  A lot of fibre artists wouldn't touch this, deeming the process inefficient.  But I expect you have to judge varafell on the product rather than the process.  If you compare a varafell cloak to a fulled handwoven twill coat, the former sounds more functional, as it is described as being water resistant, and it sounds durable.  And one size would fit all, I imagine.  How many varafell cloaks would you have to weave for yourself and your family in your lifetime, compared to coats.

     This topic has left me with so many questions.  What else can you weave with a warp-weighted loom, and how.  How many fleeces go into a varafell cloak, and is the sheep breed supposed to be spelsau.  Vesterheim's course description says one or two pelts are needed (and I really hope for the sheep's sake that what is meant is not pelts but fleeces), but I assume the warp and weft used in the class will be commercially spun and so the course materials would not be representative of the amount of materials needed for a handspun, handwoven cloak.  What equipment do you use to spin the wool into warp and weft to weave a varafell cloak, with what technique, and at what gauge, angle of twist, and number of plies.  If you were to have a warp-weighted loom, how would you keep it in place on the wall lacking an old house where you can add nails to the wall.  Where do you get a warp-weighted loom and a warping frame to go with it.  This, especially.  I guess I need to reread Hoffmann's book.

It's Difficult to Buy Flax and Flax Tools

     It is expensive to buy flax ready for spinning into yarn.  If you want to grow or buy flax straw and process the fibre yourself so it is ready to spin, it's difficult and expensive to buy flax tools to do that.  To spin flax into yarn, it works best to use specialized tools.  

     This is why for so many years I have put off getting into flax, other than weaving a bit with commercially-spun linen yarn, despite loving linen textiles so very, very much.

     Flax fibre comes from the tall, unbranched stalk of a flax plant.  The plant grows from seeds bred to produce fibre and the seeds are planted closely together to prevent the plants from producing branches.  The product line flax is fibre that is as long or nearly as long as the original flax plant stem.  It is not chopped up.  The best linen fabric is from line flax.  To process flax plants to make fibre from them that is ready to spin into yarn, you have to ret the flax, break it, scutch it, and hackle it.  Respectively, this partially decomposes the stalks, breaks away the outer material, and combs the fibers to align them and eliminate short fibers.

     I found flax hackles for sale on the Windham Woolwork website.  A set of coarse, medium, and fine hackles would cost hundreds of dollars, and I couldn't find any information on the site about whether they ship from the U.K. to the U.S. or not.  The only other place I could find that sells new flax hackles is TelTechArts on Etsy.  Unfortunately TelTechArts hackles only come in one coarseness, not as a set.  The Woolery lists one flax hackle but it is out of stock.  The Woolgatherers website sells plans to make flax hackles as well as plans for a flax break and scutching board.  Cindy Conner, author of Homegrown Flax and Cotton, has a description on her blog about how she started with an antique hackle and rounded out her set by making a couple of other flax hackles.  I remember a long time ago reading a statement from Indigo Hound explaining that they did not make and sell flax hackles because they could not do it more cheaply than people could buy antique hackles.

     Then there's the labour.  According to the website Flaxland, "It will take around a day to break, scutch and hackle 1 kilo of long line fibre and 1 kilo of tow from retted flax stems, using hand tools."  A kilogram, 1,000 g, is 2.2 pounds.  So in other words, in a day, not including the retting process, you could process by hand as much flax as you could buy already processed for $220 USD, assuming $25 for a 4 ounce (112 g) flax strick.  However, you would have to build up the grip strength needed to process flax all day.  I tried processing a small bundle of flax fibers once, as much as I could hold in my hand, and my hand got very sore.

     First, of course, you'd have to get unretted flax straw.  I don't know of anywhere local that sells it.  The one place I do know of that sells it, Landis Valley museum, has a website that puts my computer's security feature on high alert so I wasn't able to check the current price.  The museum also sells the right kind of seed.  It's no wonder that Cindy grows her own flax and saves her own seeds.  To grow flax you need land or access to land, again costly.  Elsie Davenport's book Your Handspinning states that the soil needs to be sandy.  Here is central Virginia we have clay, so you'd probably want to amend the soil.  I assume the soil needs to be somewhat enriched.  Cindy has a DVD for that, Cover Crops and Compost Crops In Your Garden.

     I should point out that for $27, slightly more than the cost of a flax strick, The Woolery sells a 4.4 ounce (123 g) cone of commercially spun linen yarn that comes from line flax.  It is comparable in quality to a flax strick.  My conclusion is that you have to really want to spin flax to pay for flax stricks.

     I have seen handspinners spin yarn countless times with wool and sometimes with cotton, angora, mohair, alpaca, and blends that contain silk.  But I've seen them spin flax less than a dozen times.  It's rarely done and from what I can see the skill is not being passed on, save for at the occasional class at places like The Folk School.  My guild has wool combs, spinning wheels (one with a distaff), and a floor loom for rent but nothing for processing flax.  The tools, equipment, and supplies for spinning flax are costly and hard to obtain and I think that's a reason why handspinners don't get into flax.  And since they don't get into flax, that means the market is small and that in turn means there is little incentive for businesses to cater to the market.  I think it's a cycle.

     It is easier to spin flax if you have special equipment, such as a distaff and a spindle meant for flax or a spinning wheel meant for flax.  Examples of spindles meant for flax are the Medieval spindle shafts and whorls from NiddyNoddyUK on Etsy, but if you order a spindle shaft with spiral tip there, ask for it to be counterclockwise or S because flax is spun counterclockwise due to its physical properties.  I've heard that Turkish spindles are good for spinning flax, and I'm told the best Turkish spindles are from Jenkins.  A distaff holds the flax arranged so it can be drafted easily.  Distaffs are hard to find for sale.  Few handspinners I know have this stuff.  Cotton takes special equipment too, yet I know handspinners that own tahklis and charkhas.  Nice and expensive charkhas too, from Bosworth Spindles.

     It is rare for a handweaver or knitter to use linen yarn to create a linen towel or a linen sweater.  I can't remember the last time I saw any finished objects in linen in show and tell at a guild meeting or in a festival display.  Whatever it was, it was probably a woven garment of Cindy's.  I'll see on Ravelry garments knitted with a commercial yarn containing a small percentage of linen.  Now, there are some handspinners that tell me that they will still spin yarn they have no use for, but you can see why it might inhibit most handspinners.

Old Footage of Dressing a Distaff with Flax

      I came across old footage on YouTube of a woman dressing a distaff and spinning flax on a spinning wheel.  It looked like she was using six stricks, or about a pound and a half (680 g) of line flax.  As a four ounce (112 g) strick currently costs about $25 USD, that was pretty expensive.  Not to mention the cost of shipping.  I don't know of anywhere local that sells flax stricks.

     I pulled out my copy of Elsie Davenport's Your Handspinning and was relieved to read that she recommends dressing a distaff with an ounce and a half (42 g) of line flax over a cone of wadded up tissue paper. 

I Tried Making a Sprang Market Bag and Miscalculated Badly

      A couple of posts ago, I said that I had tried and failed to do warp-shaping on a sprang warp.  I did figure it out.  Unfortunately, I did my warp calculations based on plain interlinking but did a pattern of holes all over, the Haraldskaer pattern.  Holes expand more than plain interlinking.  The bag came out much too wide and much too short, so it doesn't function as a bag.  I did multiple thread interlinking on the handles to draw in the fabric and that part biased badly.  The finished object is not good for much except to serve as a horrible example.

     I am still sad about wasting a good skein of linen-cotton yarn.

     The bone darning needle shown in the photo is from WoodwindSilverstone on Etsy.  It has a nice sharp tip.

     You may not be a weaver and be wondering what I mean when I say warp calculations.  On a loom, for weaving or for sprang, there are threads that go lengthwise and are secured at either end.  The threads sit side by side.  So you have length, and you have width with so many ends per inch.  On a loom for weaving, the threads sit a little bit apart from each other so that they are spaced properly through the reed.  The reed is part of the loom, in the front.  The reed separates the threads and you use it to beat the cloth to make the fabric construction consistent after you pass a weft thread right to left or left to right through the shed.  You create the shed by raising some of the threads while others stay lowered.  In sprang there is no weft and no reed, and when warping you can space the threads as tightly as you like as long as they don't get out of order.  For either weaving or sprang, you want know the length of your warp, the number of ends per inch, the width of the fabric you want to make, the way the fabric will change when it comes off the loom and gets washed, and the kind of yarn you want to use.  When you know these things, you can figure out how much yarn goes on the loom and thus you can figure out how much yarn to buy or how much yarn to spin.

     The wrinkle with sprang is that, compared to weaving, the fabric changes a lot when it comes off the loom.  With plain interlinking, I generally expect that the fabric will be about thirty percent wider and thirty percent shorter when it comes off the loom.  I was not expecting the fabric to be more than a hundred percent wider, as it was with the lacy market bag.

I Tried Spinning Flax

      I got a lesson from a kind friend on how to spin flax into linen thread.  Here is what my attempt looked like.  I should try spinning a thicker thread when I practice some more.