Floor looms generally have either 4 or 8 harnesses but can have many more. You can use a floor loom to produce longer and wider pieces of fabric, home linens, accessories, and rugs but they can also be used for smaller items such as scarves and coasters. They’re freestanding and made for weaving larger projects. These are the largest of the home weaver’s looms. While you can get a table loom that has more than 8 shafts, the most common types have either 4 or 8. They are made to be used on top of a table or on a stand. Table looms are smaller and more portable than floor looms but more complex than the other small looms in this list. They can be used with or without a stand. By adding another heddle, the weaver can use thinner yarns and weave more intricate patterns using pick-up sticks and hand manipulation techniques. With one rigid heddle, they can be used for two-shaft weaving using yarns that are generally thicker than those used by multi-shaft looms. It also offers a lot in terms of patterning to an experienced weaver through hand manipulation of the warp and weft. Rigid-Heddle LoomsĪ rigid-heddle loom is a good beginner’s loom. The bands can serve as purse straps, dog collars, leashes, and many other items. They are portable and while they are a great beginner’s loom, experienced weavers also use them to create complex patterns. Inkle looms are used to weave narrow strips of fabric such as straps and belts. Other types of tapestry looms hold longer warps and offer methods of creating a shed. Frame looms do not have any ability to create a shed, and a tapestry you create on a frame loom is constrained to the size of the frame. Tapestry looms include the simplest of looms, the frame loom. A skilled weaver can produce beautiful and complex patterns using a backstrap loom. The weight of the weaver keeps the warp taut. The warp is tied around a stationary object on one end and to the weaver at the other. The backstrap loom is a simple loom developed by ancient civilizations and still used in many countries today. Photo by Claudette Bleijenberg on Unsplash Types of Looms Backstrap Loomīackstrap loom. The rigid heddle on a rigid-heddle loom contains the heddles, reed, and beater it creates the shed, spaces the warp threads, and beats in the weft. Backstrap and inkle looms rely on the natural tendency of threads to move together rather than spacing by a reed, and use the edge of a shuttle to beat. Placing a pick is called beating, except for the case of a heavy rug where placing is a better description.Īlong with it's role in beating, the reed determines the spacing of the warp threads so that the resulting fabric is evenly woven. After each pick, the weaver changes the shed by changing which warp threads are lifted or lowered and places the pick using a part of the loom called a beater that holds what is called a reed that resembles a very large comb in a frame. Each pass of a shuttle through the shed is called a pick. In either case, as a shuttle moves through the shed across the warp, it leaves a trail of weft. On simpler looms (inkle looms, backstrap looms, and rigid-heddle looms), the heddles are moved up or down manually to create the shed.Ī weft-carrying shuttle can be as simple as a stick wrapped with thread or can be a fairly technical flying shuttle that zooms across the warp with the quick flick of a cord. When the weaver uses treadles or levers to lift or lower the harnesses, the warp threads threaded through heddles on those harnesses go up or down and create a shed. For example, on multi-shaft looms, warp threads are lifted or lowered because they are threaded through heddles that hang on frames called harnesses. Except for the most basic of looms, such as frame looms, all looms have some method for creating sheds. The weaver then pushes the weft through that opening using a tool called a shuttle. Once you understand the weaving process, it's easier to recognize the different types of weaving looms, and you'll have an idea of which types of looms are best for you! Basics of Weaving & LoomsĪs they weave, the weaver lifts or lowers some of the warp threads to form an opening between them called a shed. The threads that are held taut on a loom are called the warp, and the threads that cross the warp are called weft. There are several types of weaving looms with different features, but at their essence all of them perform this fundamental task. At the most basic level, looms hold lengthwise threads taut while other threads are woven through them crosswise.
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