My 18th Century Reproduction Tape Loom

This is a Jonathan K. Seidel handmade cherry tape loom that I received for Christmas.  Jonathan lives in Pennsylvania, and he made this tape loom similar to tape looms commonly used in Colonial American between about 1760-1830.  They are also called box looms.  Tapes are narrow bands, ribbons, or trims that were commonly used in Colonial America.

During the Revolutionary War and in early Colonial America, colonists were no longer importing goods from England, so they were making tapes, or bands, at home.  Tapes were used in so many areas of their lives.  They could use the tapes for bonnet ties, hat bands, apron ties, and to tie other clothing.  They used the tapes for tying grain sacks or seed bags.  They could use bands to hang powder horns or hunting pouches on their bodies.  They also used the tapes for loops to hang up towels. 

The origin of tape looms in early America was from the immigrants who came to America.  The Germans who settled in Philadelphia brought their knowledge of tape looms with them, which spread to other areas of the Colonies.  The Scandinavians also used a rigid heddle to make tape, but they used a backstrap method instead of the box method.  The decorative piece with slots and holes is called the rigid heddle in my box loom below.

The tape is made on this side of the loom (above) by passing the weft thread through the shed of the yarns or threads.  This makes a very strong warp-faced band.  Jonathan warped the loom for me so I will know how to warp it next time.  It takes some practice to weave the band because you hold the band in one hand while weaving with the other hand. 

The threads are warped onto the reel and the brake holds the threads in place. 

Jonathan told me that no two tape looms are usually exactly alike.  This is because a man would make a tape loom for his children or grandchildren, or a husband would make a tape loom for his wife.  So, usually the man of the family would make only 1 or 2 looms during his lifetime.  The children learned to make tapes to help with the work of the family.

I'd love to go Pennsylvania or Massachusetts to see some of the tape loom collections in museums there, such as The Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum in Pennsylvania and the Hershey Museum of American Life.

On My Loom

I have kitchen towels on my loom.  I'm working on the 4th towel now.  My granddaughter put the teddy bear on the loom when she was over.  It's funny because the bear is the Harrisville Designs bear, Harris, from the Harrisville Designs knitting kit, and he's sitting on the Harrisville loom. 

 The yarn for the towels is 3/2 cotton, and the sett is 15 EPI in a 10-dent reed threaded (1,2) repeat.  I warped 6 yards of white, which should be enough for 6 towels.  The pattern is Finnish Bird's Eye from the book, "A Handweaver's Pattern Book," by Marguerite Porter Davison.  The first towel is blue with a white warp. This is pattern II of Finnish Bird's Eye.

The second towel is yellow.  This is pattern V of Finnish Bird's Eye.

The 3rd towel is red, and the pattern is IV of Finnish Bird's Eye.

The 4th towel is burgundy, and the pattern is III of Finnish Bird's Eye.

Once they're all finished, I'll zigzag stitch between the towels, cut them apart, hem, and wash them. It's fun weaving different patterns and different colors for the towels.  I use size 5/2 cotton for the hems, which will be turned twice and sewn. Using a finer yarn helps keep the hems from flaring out.  Sometimes I use plain weave for the hems, and sometimes I just use a part of the pattern or a basic twill pattern. 

Notes for woven towels: 1350 yards per cone. 270 ends x 6 = 1620 yards, 1 cone + 270 yards. 270 ends + 2 floats, 18" wide. 1" hems. Each towel: 26" plus 1" hems on each side. 2 floating selvages added and weighted on back. Heddle count: 1-54, 2-54, 3-81, 4-81. 30" per towel plus loom waste. 30 x 6 = 180 + 36" loom waste = 216"= 6 yards for warp.  Tie up blank squares, but I convert it to regular twill tie up treadling: 1,2; 2,3; 3,4; 4,1. Threading: 4,3,2,1,4,3,4,1,2,3 repeat across and add floating selvages.. 
Treadling Converted:
I: 1,4,3,2
II: 1,4,3,2, 1,4,1, 2,3,4,1,2
III: 1,4,3,2, 3,4,3  2,3,4,1,  2,3,4,1, 4,3,4,  1,4,3,2
IV: 1,4,3,2, 1,4,3,2, 1,2,3,4, 1,2,3,4
V: 1,4,3,2, 1,4,3,2, 3,4,1, 2,3,4
VI: 1,4,1, 2,3,2

Matching a Print for Seaming Panels

I'm making valances for my daughter's kitchen, and the window above the sink required a wide valance that is wider than my fabric, so the fabric and contrasting lining band had to be pieced.

Some fabric panels do not have patterns that match at the selvage sides, so they require a bit of work to match the pattern well.  You will cut your panels several inches longer than you will need for the valance.  This is because the pattern sometimes "drops down" several inches here and there across the fabric panel, so you lose inches at the top or bottom of the panel when piecing them.  Always buy extra fabric when you have to piece fabric panels--at least one full repeat extra.  Some drapery fabrics do match well at the sides, but this one was one that didn't.

Always have a full panel in the center of your curtain or valance.  The side pieces can each be a full panel or a half panel.  I used a half panel, so I cut my second panel in half in the exact center vertically.

Always match selvage to selvage.  Place the two selvages right sides together.  Fold back the top selvage so you can see the pattern.  Move the top folded selvage until you can match a pattern on the lower fabric.  You may have to move the top folded selvage several inches into the other fabric to find a match.  Here's the match of my fabric across the length of the fabric.  The top selvage is folded back.  You can see I lost about 5 inches or so of the lower fabric to find the match.  Click to enlarge pictures.

 Now carefully pin through all layers at this point.  This is just to match it up all the way across the fabric.  Crease the fold of the top fabric well with your fingernail or an iron.  This will be your stitching line.

Carefully take out a few pins at a time, and without moving your fabrics at all, place the pins into the creased mark of the fabric.  With a fabric pencil, lightly mark the folded line on the wrong side, too, so you can easily see it when stitching.  I place these pins right down the center line of the crease.

 Now fold it back once more to be sure you have pinned in the right spots.

Now sew right down the creased and marked line.  You can baste first if you'd like.  Here's the finished seam with the pattern matched.

Here's the lining fabric also matched and seamed.  With a stripe fabric, it is very easy to match the stripes so the seam hardly shows at all.  The seam is at the bottom of the red stripe.  It looks like one continuous piece of fabric.

A Bit about Boundweave

A weaver on Facebook asked me about Boundweave because we were both in Tom Knisely's class last March at the Jefferson City Fiber Retreat, so I thought I'd add some information here about Boundweave.  This way I'll have my notes here, too.

Boundweave is a weft-faced weaving technique where the warp threads are covered completely by the weft.  So, the colors that you throw when weaving completely cover the warp that was on the loom.  So, the warp must be threaded more loosely to allow the weft threads to cover it.  This produces a really nice thick fabric suitable for rugs, heavy tote bags, horse blankets, or table runners.

It is a slow technique because 2 or more throws are needed for each row of weaving.  We used long stick shuttles, which is also slower than using a regular boat shuttle.

We used a 12 dent reed and sleyed 2 ends of 8/4 carpet warp (natural color) in a dent and heddle, then skipped a dent, and repeat.  So, the 2 threads were threaded as one in both reed and heddle.  We added floating selvedges weighted separately using 3 ends of warp to each selvage on each side in a separate dent next to the last one.  This worked out to a sett of 6 ends per inch.  We used 162 ends for a width in reed of 13.5"

For weft, I used Paton's worsted weight wool, which filled in very nicely.  I used my Structo table loom, and it did surprisingly well with beating the weft in.  Usually you need a very heavy loom for techniques like this, but the loose sett helped also.

For the class, we worked a few inches in several different exercises.  Each exercise used "blocks", which are the shafts that are risen for that block.  For example, Block A may be shafts 3-4 using color A, then shafts 1-2 using color B.  Each block is repeated 4 times in some exercises.

Here's my example of the different exercises we did in class.  I used these colors: Red, Color A: Dark Gray, Color B; Yellow, Color C, and Blue, color D.

To beat in the weft threads well, push down the shaft, throw the weft, beat, push down the next shafts, beat again, and then throw the next color.  Repeat. This will help get the threads pushed down enough so they cover the warp well.

For my project at home after class, I did Boundweave on Opposites and I used 2 colors: red and gray.  This means that if you raise 2 shafts for the first throw of weft, you raise the other 2 shafts for the next throw of weft.  This will fill in one row with 2 colors of weft, which makes a design.

I used a Rosepath pattern for weaving:  Blocks A, B, C, D, A, D, C, B, A.  This makes a diamond pattern.  The blue at the beginning is waste yarn that will be taken out later. 

Here's the finished project.  I twined the fringe, which worked out well, too.

My notes:
Block A: 3-4 Color A, 1-2 Color B > 4 times
Block B: 4-1 Color A, 2-3 Color B> 4 times
Block C: 1-2 Color A, 3-4 color B> 4 times
Block D: 2-3 color A, 4-1 Color B> 4 times
Rosepath: A, B, C, D, A, D, C, B repeat. End with A,B,C,D,A,D,C,B,A
Color A is Red.  Color B is Dark Gray. Patons Wool worsted weight.

Rosepath threading: (1,2,3,4,1,4,3,2) repeat across.  Last repeat: (1,2,3,4,1,4,3,2,1)  Floating selvages on ends before and after threading.