A Loom With A View

Yes, that's a cheesy heading but I couldn't resist. It's also not strictly accurate as I'm actually talking about two looms!

Back in the autumn, we went to one of the Emmaus branches in the region - the one at Hedé, near Rennes. I bought a few things there which included several cones of a very fine red yarn - possibly cotton - I need to do a burn test to find out - which I'm thinking to use held with some cones of black Cashwool in a single (that I picked up ages and ages ago for a bargain price) for a Habu-esque jackety thing, an armchair for our sitting room and two identical folding floor looms. I think I paid 30 euros for the pair!

(Damn - I posted this instead of saving as a draft.)

There are more pictures over on my Flickr account. I haven't a clue as to the manufacturer of these looms - there are no markings at all. They are four shaft looms though. The wood in some of the harnesses is warped but not in all and the reeds have some rust otherwise they're mostly just in need of a good clean. I'm hoping that we can make one good loom out of the two. Initially I may just use two harness until I get more confidence. The looms also came with a spare reed, a huge bundle of metal heddles, warping posts, some rudimentary raddles and some stick shuttles. At the moment they're still in storage as we've got enough on our plates just getting through each day. This is going to be a very long term project but we couldn't resist the opportunity when we saw it. There's no way we can even afford a basic rigid heddle like the Kromski Harp at the moment (I can still dream though...). I already had started a small collection of weaving books picked up at car boot sales, mostly in French but a few in English as well.

La Grippe

In other news, the family has been suffering from the flu. Rob and Rhianwen had it. Mum was ill with it for sometime, I was in bed with it all of last week and I'm still very tired this week, Meleri has just started it. Luckily we have also had 'une aide à domicile' that has started coming this month for around 7 hours a week. It has made so much of a difference. There are two different women who come, depending on who's available, they can acheive so much in a couple of hours, it would take me all week to manage it and I'd be exhausted. It also means that Rob isn't spending all his free time trying to catch up on housework.