Most large-scale weavers were males traveling from home to home.
Colonial weaving was about more than cloth-making. By 1680 tariffs had been passed by Great Britain placing restrictions on cloth export and import and on the import of looms. While early colonial weaving was a necessity, after about 1750 it was seen as an expression of colonial patriotism. The battle over who legally made and sold fabric helped lead to the Revolutionary War.
Flax and Wool Processing Tools
All colonial fabrics started as flax, wool or cotton. A rippling comb was used to remove the seeds in flax; then after several long processes to remove most of the non-fibrous material, a device called a hackle in fine, medium, and coarse sizes was used to comb the remaining fibers. Hackles resembled rows of needles attached, points-out, to a metal plate; the entire tool fastened to a table or other heavy object to draw flax fibers through it. Repeated hackling made fibers softer and finer, and girls sometimes hackled flax for years to make cloth for wedding gown lace. Wool was easier to process; household children combed it with a pair of wire carding brushes to remove debris and straighten the fibers.
Spinning
After hanks of wool or flax were detangled, they were spun into yarn or thread using a spindle, a long slender spike with a round wooden or metal base. Simple coarse yarn was made by drawing yarn over a hand-held spindle while twisting the spindle, then allowing the yarn to naturally wrap around the spindle's neck. Spinning wheels provided a faster way to make finer threads. Wool threads were made with a great wheel. To operate a great wheel, the spinner attached a spindle to a plate on the spinning wheel, then "walked" the wheel back and forth while holding the thread and hank loosely. The wheel twisted the spindle, making thread quickly and easily. Flax spinning usually was done on a smaller Saxony wheel, where the spinner could sit while making her thread, operating a treadle beneath the machine to spin the wheel. Finished thread was folded into loose skeins or wound onto swifts, a sort of adjustable spool that could easily be used on looms.
Full-Size Looms
Complex cloth was woven on a full-sized loom. These devices were composed of a frame suspended on 7-foot-tall posts. Thread was wrapped on swifts. Loose thread ends were run over a yarn-beam, then attached to harnesses suspended over the work area. These wound threads were called the "woof." The harnesses held the threads in an appropriate pattern. When the weaver stepped on treadles below the loom, the harness lifted up some of the threads. The weaver ran a shuttle between the threads that carried another thread, called a warp, behind it. He pulled the warp tight, then pulled a beater down against the thread. The beater or batten, essentially a long suspended pole, packed the thread tight in the woof, and the weaver stepped on the next treadle to prepare for the next row of thread. Weavers on these machines were not limited to simple under-and-over plain weave. Skilled weavers could weave twill patterns, dot patterns and dozens of other patterns by varying how the loom warp was threaded over the harnesses.
Hand Looms
For small work, like garters or ribbons, most homes had a gallus frame or tape loom. These small looms looked like full-sized looms without the complexity, but they often would fit easily on a table or bench. A warp was threaded onto the small loom, and the threads passed over a small yarn-beam. The warp passed through a small heddle-frame with each threaded through a heddle -- narrow wires or cords with eyes to hold the threads. Paddles beneath the machine allow the heddles to be lifted and lowered so the shuttle can be passed between. The function of a hand loom is identical to a full-size loom, but it was meant for much smaller cloth pieces.
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