Weaving, I’ve decided, is my friend. It doesn’t involve a lot of intricate finger movements. It would even less so if I used foot pedals for the table loom rather than levers. We’d always intended to add them to the loom stand we made ages ago, but didn’t get around to it.
A few weeks ago I flirted with the idea of buying the Ashford stand and pedal kit, but when I told Paul it costs around $550 pre-postage we concluded it was worth having a go at modifying the existing table. So we did some designing, carpentry, varnishing and knotting of washing line rope…
After a bit of tweaking I have working pedals, though the shafts don’t always fall back down completely. Still, it cost us nothing since we still had the parts from when we’d first made the table. And even with having to push the odd shaft down it seems much faster and a lot less work for my hands.
And that makes me very happy!
Well done! It would be awful to have to give up something you enjoy doing so much. I don’t know anything about looms – will this let you do all the different styles of weaving you enjoy exploring?
It’s not that it allows me to do more weaving structures, but that I don’t need hands to operate part of the loom. And so far it seems to be faster – bonus!