Advice for Upgrading to an 8-Shaft Floor Loom

 

First a little eye candy.  I bought this little antique beauty to be a side table on the right of the big loom.  I'm used to having a tight space with the other loom in the guest room, right up against the shelving by the wall.  I can easily reach for pins or scissors or have a wider place to rest a shuttle between passes.  The new Loom Room is more spread out and the shelves are farther away from the bench.

 

I also made a new little pin cushion out of a ramekin for the flat head pins and the T-pins needed for repairing broken warp strings.  And of course, a little pair of scissors.

Ok -- now down to business:

Now that I have the new-to-me 8-shaft floor loom, and it's all set up and ready for a new project, I've been feeling a bit whelmed (not quite over-whelmed, but just whelmed) about where to begin with it.  So I asked the 8-Shaft Weaving FB Group what advice they would offer someone upgrading to an 8-Shaft loom from 4-Shafts.  In other words, what did they wish someone had told them when they switched to 8S?  Here is some of their sage advice:

 

1) Get the Carol Strickler Book for 8-Shafts

2) Join the FB Group called Strickler in Color

3) Lots of great 8 shaft drafts on Handweaving.net.

 

The Mind Shift 4 to 8 Treadles

4)  My mentor told me to think of the 8 shaft loom as if it were two 4 shaft looms stacked. That really helped me understand the design potential. You can also weave 6 shaft drafts and leave the remaining two shafts for basketweave selvedges or other interesting effects.

5) My own personal advice would be to look at some of the nice drafts that are only 5 or 6 shafts. Just because you *have* 8, doesn't mean you have to use them all every time. 

6) I’m just a year into upgrading to 8. Lifting 5 harnesses instead of 2-3 is heavier. Getting the loom set up well takes more time. More complicated prettier patterns makes a treadle tracker more important. I use iWeaveIt. I switched back to 4 harness patterns after initial frustration but now I’m getting it. I’ll switch back and forth.  [I do have the iWeaveIt app, but I tend not to use it for tracking treadles or threading.  I prefer my treadle bead system for that.]

7)  Same, only expanded, for example a twill could be, 1+2, 2+3, 3+4, 4+5, 5+6, 6+7, 7+8, 8+1,. About any four harness weave can be expanded too. all weaving is either a plain weave, twill or satin or a variation of that. You can do the middle of a piece on 4 shafts and the boarder in plain or another weave, at the same time! It gives you many more blocks in summer and winter or overshot or double weave. So much more versatile!

8) If your twill uses six or less shafts, use two of the extras for your selvedges.

 

Picking a First Pattern

9)  Find something you want to weave and DO IT!

10) Start with an easy draft so that you are getting used to the loom without fighting the draft.

11)  As for a first pattern, I would suggest trying pinwheels. They are really easy to do (straight threading & treadling). They look so cool and everyone loves the look.

12) Go play! Do a sampler with Margaritte Davison’s beloved green book or a double weave study with Jennifer Moore’s [Double Weave] book. Borrow 8 shaft pattern books from your guild library and try a few. Have fun!

 

Threading

13) Label the shafts with numbered stickers (removeable) to save a lot of confusion.  I already do this on my 4S loom.  Here I used blue painter's tape.  It's new and removes easily.

14) Number your shafts. (This weaver had actually wood-burned the shaft numbers into the top of the shafts).  [I had to move the shafts around to find an optimal order where they were not getting hung up, so I don't think I want to commit to wood-burning the shaft number on the frame.]

15) Put numbers on the back of the harnesses to help with threading.

 

16)  Use different colored clover clips on the heddle bars to identify even and odd shafts. My pedal cords are white cord, so I color coded them with sharpie pens. If you have chain connectors, use various colored paper clips. 

17) Color the heddles: red, white, blue, green, repeat. [I have steel heddles and use sharpie pens to color-code them.]

18) Use a wedge [or a wheel chock] to hold the shafts up so threading 8 is easier.    I bought this wheel chock at Walmart in the automotive section for under $5.  You can buy wedges specifically for this purpose at weaving shops, but this works just as well.  The photo above shows it from the front of the loom.  I thread from the back, so I want the slant to rise from the back of the loom.

This is how it looks from the back side.  A nice stepped gradient to make threading a little easier.

 

Here's a wider view, for perspective.   You can see the same steps in the shaft frames at the top of the loom.

19) Second check threadings on the 4th and 5th shafts. Your depth perception will need to adjust!

20)  Triple check your threading. It's easy to mess up.

 

21) No one said it, but I'm thinking it might be helpful to remove the back beam for threading heddles.  I learned to warp the loom front to back, and that would get me closer to the heddles.  I'll see if that's needed the first time I'm threading ...

 

This one shows masking tape on the treadles.  This the the previous owner's system. I'm not sure what I'll need yet for my first project.

Treadles

22) Put rubber bands [hair ties] on all the even treadles so bare feet can tell/feel where you are.

23) Learn to walk your treadle.  Split tabby treadles on each side and put the 8 pattern treadles in the middle. So if my tabby shuttle is on right, I know I need treadle 10, and if it’s on left I know I use treadle 1.  [Yes, I tend to do this already with 4 shafts, and I label them A on the left and B on the far right.  It works for me.  The tabby always follows the pattern shuttle, and I'm always throwing the shuttle towards the tabby treadle.  If I keep that in mind,  I don't have to think about it too hard.]

24)  Your legs will be tired from treadling 8 instead of 4. So start off slowly.

 

25) Depending on your knees. Try not to get too many heddles tied to one treadle, Esp if one knee is a bit weak. The sequence and numbering is entirely up to you. Do you like left,right, left , right, or 1234. And so on ...

 

26)   Be prepared to revise the draft so that the treadles with the most shafts are in the center, where they are easier to push down/have the most shafts. Having 5 or more shafts attached to an outer treadle is very heavy and very difficult to push. Of course if the draft only uses that treadle occasionally, just be prepared to shift over on your bench, but if it uses it a lot . . . revise the draft to center it.

 

Thank you to all the Weaver's on the Weaving FB Groups that contributed to this post.  Thank you for welcoming me to the group and offering your wisdom and advice.