Two Looms

Yes, this is an awkward angle, taken lying on the floor next to the loom dressed with purple. It's the best way I could convey the reality of two looms after the beam was done being woven. My regular "wide angle" approach would have only showed an empty beam. Yeah, I forgot to take this photo last week when both looms were in full swing. I was too busy winding the next beam on a tight deadline.

The point is that I have two looms up and running now! Last November I acquired a second production loom, which is a story in itself, with plans to turn it into my "setup" loom. This lets me design, wind, thread, and sley the next batch of cloth while someone else weaves the current one.

And, for the first time since I got it, it's doing just what it's supposed to. Winter is a slow time for sales, and for energy level to do production. As a result, the purple cloth was not done when I think it should have been, and it's going to be very tough to have grey cloth in time for my most hopeful show of this season, coming up in just over a week.

The second loom shaved about three weeks off the production time for this grey cloth since I didn't have to wait for the purple to be done before I set it up. Instead, the purple was finished on Friday, and the grey was moved over and ready to start weaving on Saturday.

I may not sound very excited because I'm distracted by the need to work every available hour to meet my production deadlines, but this is an incredibly huge achievement in the development of the business. The new loom and others in the collective to help weave on it will get every batch of cloth done in 6-7 weeks instead of 10.