Spinning a yarn - In the beginning

It was early one morning, I had been woken by a hungry baby and instead of going back to sleep my mind started to wonder. Wonder to what exactly? To weaving. I hopped on Ebay, perused google and gazed at gumtree.

To my surprise I found a lady offering a "4 shaft loom" for $120. Now I didn't know much about looms at that point, just that I was after one with 'shafts' and it seemed like a pretty good deal.

I offered her $100 and told her I could pick it up that day.

She told me she had someone lined up for the following week, but was happy to have the extra garage space immediately.

I made the 45 minute trip to Mornington with baby in tow. Somehow detouring through Tyabb, passing beautiful scenery of fields and fauna along the way to the oceanside town.

When I finally arrived a woman in her early 50s, donning a knitted shawl opened the door.

She told me of how it was gifted to her and she had never gotten around to setting it up, she exclaimed all the pieces were there... twice! Her mother whom she was caring for passed away and she was moving back to Northern Brisbane, her second home.

She took me around to the garage and the manual door opened with a slow screech. There it was, wooden and metal fronds splayed out of an old Dick Smith TV box.

This baby had certainly seen better days.

Piece by piece we popped it into the boot of my car and there was a sudden downpour. I thanked her & placed the last piece in the boot. She quickly bid me farewell and slammed the old metal garage door shut, disappearing into it's depths.

I drove to work with the loom still in my boot, smiling smugly, feeling pretty proud of my bargain and in anticipation of the challenges that lied ahead!

That night after work I tried to google looms that resembled the pieces in my possession. I found an inscription in German on one piece - "hinten rechts oben" which translates to right leg upper. No brand in site & the lady was unaware of the brand either, just that it was a 4 shaft counterbalance loom.

The next morning I decided to attempt the jigsaw myself. I successfully pieced together 3 main parts.

According to weavers groups online and the images I came across it looked like parts were missing.... Had I been ripped off?! "Oh well, at least it was only $100." I thought to myself.

Slowly but surely over a few days I pieced the loom together. I rang the local weavers guild to see if they could be of any assistance. They offered some great advice, but not in relation to rebuilding this loom.

Just as I was giving up hope and thinking of re-listing the parts

I found the brand, the faded gold name was hidden on the honeysuckle wood, "Kircher Rahmen" I googled the name and only found a german site and an American blog.

I discovered it is a rigid heddle loom, with the ability to be converted to a 4 shaft with an expansion kit. Mine had the expansion.

I discovered 2 broken pieces of wood and some very rusty metal - nothing a trip to Bunnings wont fix!.

With a bit of restoration and a lot of love I'll have this baby up and running!

A lovely weaver from the Facebook group I joined pointed me to a site with a little information on the particular loom I purchased. She told me congratulations, I have a rarity and it's supposedly worth a pretty penny. She also advised me that the heddles alone were worth a bit, should I want to sell them. Hmm! From feeling lucky to ripped off to more than lucky in the space of a few days!

Whether I'll be a fantastic or lousy weaver, I am uncertain. What I do know is, I've met a lot of wonderful women in a great little community & had fun with this adventure so far already

!