A week or two ago I decided to risk buying and downloading an instructional video. The one I had my eye on is called “The Efficient Weaver” by Laura Fry. I’ve hesitated to buy videos because I worry that Australia’s slow internet speeds might mean I wouldn’t be able to download such a big file.

But on Easter Sunday I decided to give it a try. To my relief, the video downloaded pretty quickly and with no trouble. I watched all 1 1/2 hours of it that day, with a couple of breaks. It was very interesting and enlightening. Laura warps from front to back, which I used to do, but with some notable differences in approach. I now have warping valet envy, too.

I was very interested to see that her floor loom has the pedals on top of the bottom front support beam, like my Osbourne did before I changed it. That told me that this arrangement shouldn’t be a problem. She rests her feet where the pedals hinge when not pressing them. That position was quite a bit further forward on my loom, which meant if I rested my feet at the pivot point I’d slide off the front of my seat.

Having gained some confidence around buying videos, I ordered another: Tom Knisely’s “The Loom Owner’s Companion: Know and Love Your Loom”. It came in two parts, and the first downloaded easily. The second kept failing. It took several attempts and most of a day, but it eventually worked. After watching it, I concluded that I didn’t learn much that I didn’t already know, but a few things were confirmed and some of Tom’s tips will be very useful.

And it nudge med into giving the floor loom a ‘birthday’. I’ve had it for only two years, but some parts were a little stiff and a few areas of the wood looked a bit dull and dry. I dusted it off, rubbed Danish oil into as much wood as I could get to, treated the moving parts with WD40 and applied silicone spray to the lamm hooks and shaft runner.

Everything is running smoothly now and it looks great. All in all, I’m rather proud of the fact that it is in much better condition than when I bought it. However, the more I work on the Katie the more I want an 8 shaft floor loom, so I’ve been online window shopping looms and keeping an eye on eBay. And I’m more actively trying to sell the Ashford 4-shaft table loom.

Change may be in the wind.