Smithsonian Folklife Festival

They are on their way – a bevy of needles and learn to spin kits are headed south to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. We were thrilled to be asked to supply the festival with hand crafted, made in the USA craft tools.  For the festival, Tom produced a straight needle that is engraved to commemorate the occasion:

And turned his heart out to produce enough spindles for hundreds of learn to spin kits:

Hopefully a new generation of knitters and spinners will be uncovered in the next two weeks as they discover the tools of our fiber heritage at the Folklife Festival!

Loom to Luna

(Note:  The loom is now under contract.)

Yesterday I listed our Cranbrook loom for sale.   She has a 72″ weaving width, 10 treadles, 8 harnesses, and a never used shaft switcher  – all made from rock maple by Norwood in Fremont, Michigan.  She’s in great shape, sans scratches on the steel beams.  New, the loom itself sells for $7400.  And the shaft switcher is no longer available.   The Fremont woodworkers designed the shaft switcher.  When Schacht purchased the rights to the Cranbrook, the shaft switcher disappeared.

The loom:

The shaft switcher (couldn’t get far enough away to get the whole piece in the photo):

The curve in the rails is an illusion from the photograph.

We are asking $5000 for both.  They must be picked up in southern Vermont – the loom is too large to ship.  Contact us at the studio if interested – 802-869-1880.  As the picture shows, the loom is up and complete.

After a long evening, I was about to turn in when I found a visitor at our door.  I took several pictures – best as I could through the window so as not to disturb him.  I went to bed and found myself playing that game where you alter one letter in a word at a time in order to arrive at a new word:

Loom . Room . Roam . Road . Toad . Toed . Toes . Tons . Tone . Tune . Tuna . . . Luna!