Dorset Loom by F.C. Wood
My Dorset floor loom is going to Japan without me.
After I took the Knitters Loom (by Ashford) class back in 2007, I bought this loom and taught myself to really weave.
This loom was made by F.C.Wood in 1974 (that is when the original weaver bought it) and this design is the basis for the Schacht Wolf Pup Loom.
I used this loom for 2 years and then had to stop due to my torn rotator cuff and eventual shoulder surgery. And then I stopped weaving for almost 3 years and then I started weaving again in 2011 after I came back from Haystack Mountain School of Craft.
On this loom I wove a lot of scarves, some twill rugs, some plain weave rugs that were double wide and even some rep-weave. The loom came with solid stamped metal heddles and one 12-dent reed. I replaced the heddles with an inserted eye for less wear on the warp threads and I bought 2 need reeds at 8 and 10 dents.
When I joined the AGSM in 2011 I "adopted" an 8 shaft, 14 treadle 46" weaving width Gilmore Loom. I was spoiled, I wanted more shafts so I then bought an 8 shaft 36" wide Ashford folding table loom. And thus the Dorset has sat, covered by a sheet, in the bedroom closet, poor thing.
I wanted to sell it, as it was not being used much, but just could not part with it because it is such a good basic loom.
Enter Yuko Kanda.
Yuko is from Japan. She has been living in the USA for 2 1/2 years because her husband was temporally transferred, for work, to San Diego. Yuko joined the barn in late 2011 and we have our looms next to each other's; we help each other and have become "weaving" friends.
Yuko was interested in acquiring the Dorset loom for her mother who also weaves but does not have a Western style loom. Yuko has told me that acquiring a western style weaving loom, in Japan, is not easy and when you can they are very expensive. Yuko was thinking that this loom could be used by her here in the USA and either be shipped to her mother before she returned to Japan next summer OR it could be packed and shipped when they return as her husbands employer was paying for the shipping cost. We were only discussing the benefits of this small loom when.... [Her house in Tokyo is only about 1,000 square feet so a folding loom is best so it can be put away when not being used.]
This past week Yuko told me that they are returning to Japan in January 2013, not during the Summer of 2013 which is what she was expecting (and would love to stay here but can't at this point in time). So she, her husband, pets, spinning wheel, and other items are going back to Japan but they are not going home to Tokyo but to another town near Mt. Fuji for another work assignment.
The decision was made, she was going to purchase the loom.
And with first shipment of their items was to be made in late November, she wanted it NOW so it could go in that shipment.
On Saturday, I took the loom to the weaving barn. I showed Yuko how to un-fold and fold the loom. I also pointed out that the original owner had signed and dated the loom when I bought it from her and I had signed and dated my name; on the cross board, at the bottom and back of the loom. This is how we can keep the history of this loom alive since so many times we don't know who owned a loom.
Now the loom is in Yuko's home, in San Diego and come January, it will be in Japan.
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