“You need something to do,” Wally told me the summer I was pregnant with our second son. He meant it in the best way, worried that stay-at-home motherhood might not be enough to keep me happy. He’d been enticing me with equipment ever since our first was born three years earlier.

There was the potter’s kick wheel he found for sale at the Beehive in Rockport. Somehow we got it and its three-foot disk of cement down four flights of stairs and home to our barn. We had no money for supplies so his plan was to dig up the blue clay he’d seen in Frohock Brook behind our house. Did I know how to throw pots? No.

So as the wheel was slowly buried under the other stuff our barn was collecting, he saw an ad for an enlarger and various photographic supplies. I set up a darkroom in our bathroom and began developing photos. Small bathroom, two adults and a toddler. That didn’t last long.

When he saw that the Union Historical Society had an old loom in their summer auction he made sure we got there. The loom turned out to be a pile of dusty lumber, and when nobody countered my $5 bid someone from the Society began bidding against me. When we got to $100 they let me have it.

A Mr. Lenfest from Washington had donated it, and he filled us in on its history. Ninety years old at the time, he remembered his grandmother weaving things for the family. He assured us it was all there; it had recently been set up on a trailer and pulled through town in a parade. He thought it was about 150 years old.

We found a spot for it in the back room, the one we still referred to as “where old man Claytor died.” That had happened some twenty years before we’d set eyes on the place and of course, we never knew the gentleman. It was one of the stories we loved telling about our old house, stories passed on to us by Nat and Vonnie Stone, the previous owners.

A loom like ours is called a barn loom as the frame consists of barn-like timbers, pegged together, hefty and heavy. One piece, a 30-inch roller, had us baffled, until we saw a picture of a loom of the same era in the Foxfire book and realized it was a primitive pulley-like device; then we knew exactly where it fit in.

However, a very pregnant me couldn’t begin to fit in. There was no room on the built-in bench for me and my belly. The baby I gave birth to that fall was nearly four years old before I finally sat down at the loom and figured out how to weave.

Looms tend to be large; certainly there are table looms for weaving placemats and other small items, but mine is a floor loom, heavy, solid with a 4.5’ x 6’ footprint, 5.5’ tall. Looms also tend to “walk”, inching across the floor as every row is rammed home by the beater; mine’s held in place with cleats screwed into the floor.

The loom originally had just four pieces of metal, all hand-forged, crude pieces of iron. All of it was made by hand: the square beams with pegged mortice and tenon joints; the awkwardly-cut iron brake; the knotted, linen heddles; the long, thin spindles, hand-whittled, that held the spools of warp; the boat shuttle with the initials “A H” carved into it. Maybe her name was Ann, the woman who first wove on it.

The linen heddles (there’s a name for every part of a loom) were rotten and the first to go, but I remember them well. Next to go were the reeds that came with the loom, handmade of actual reed, designed to calibrate the number of warp ends per inch. There were several for different weights of cloth, each marked with a hand-chiseled Roman numeral. They hang on a wall in the studio now along with the iron brake and other discarded pieces.

A stainless steel reed, polyester heddles and a modern brake have kept the loom going well past its apparent lifespan. When every slam of the beater loosened the pegs holding the frame together, I bolted it together, heresy to one guy who came by. “You drilled holes into an antique?” he asked incredulously.

Well. Yes.

Working on such a primitive machine brings a depth of meaning, a richness to the basic act of weaving. The dichotomy of then and now is wrenching; a wooden machine to make rugs, rugs that became part of our livelihood and the reality of our computerized world – bits and bytes flying through the air connecting us in unimaginable ways.

Another visitor, we knew her as Meme, with a connection to Wally’s family, got a faraway look when we showed her the loom. She was 12, she told us in her strong Quebecois accent, when she sat at loom just like ours, weaving all night long to finish the warp so the loom could be dismantled to make room for her grandfather’s coffin the next day.

For the next twenty-five years weaving on that loom became my job,

Sleepy Hollow Rag Rugs the name of my business. Until, that is, the summer Wally retired from teaching, and I figured out a way to get off that rickety bench.

“You need something to do.” I told my husband, “I’ll teach you to weave.”

And so, for the next 18 years, until the week he died, he wove a rug nearly every day. The rhythm of the loom, the “bang – pause – bang” of the beater echoed through our house as I, freed from the bench, went about my day.

The beater, which holds the reed, swings freely towards the weaver, beating in every row of weft as he pulls it toward him every ten seconds and the cloth grows. The wood is polished by hands, all the hands that have ever worked it, with a slight dip on the right side, where Wally’s hand was the last to touch it.

P.S.

Until this past week when I sat down on the bench and became reacquainted with the wooden anachronism that is my loom. I’ve missed her.

School

Congratulations to LCS fourth grade teacher Coral Coombs on receiving the Excellence in Conservation Education award from the Knox-Lincoln Soil & Water Conservation District. The awards banquet will be held in Jefferson on October 17.

Library

Tuesday, Oct. 2, 4-6 p.m. Knitting Workshop will be held at the Library. Whether you’re just learning to knit of trying to figure out a difficult part of a pattern, there’s help at the Library with some experienced and patient knitters on hand to guide and teach.

Wednesday, Oct. 3, 4-6 p.m. is Watercolor Journaling.This is not an instructional class, but participants will share their progress before quiet time to work on the journals.  Bring your own supplies: watercolor paints and brushes, pencil, permanent pen, small container for water, paper towels or towel scrap, and journal. The group meets every first and third Wednesday. 

Friday, Oct. 5 at 11 a.m. is Family Music with Jessica Day with children (toddlers to 5 years old) and their families invited to a free program playing instruments, dancing and singing.  This fun and lively event is offered every first Friday and is always full of smiles and laughter!  

All of these Library programs are free and open to all. For more information on any of these programs call 706-3896 or email

questions@lincolnvillelibrary.org

Pickles, Preserves and Pies

The Lincolnville Business Group invites all to come down to the Beach, the tent at McLaughlin’s Lobster Shack, this Saturday, Oct. 6, 9 to 1, for the annual harvest festival.

“Meet and have your photo taken with our Lincolnville Pickle, buy jars of locally made pickles or preserves, get a sweet or savory pie, buy a traditional glass pickle Christmas Ornament, try your luck on our raffle (gift certificates to places like the Youngtown Inn), and more Stop by for morning coffee and pastries, grab holiday gifts for friends and relatives, and stockpile our local harvest for a great cause!” Proceeds benefit the LBG’s scholarship fund for local students.

Lincolnville Roadside Cleanup

Josh Gerritsen sends out this invitation: “Come join us on Friday, October 12 from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturday, October 13 from 9 a.m.-noon to clean Lincolnville's roadsides! All supplies will be provided. We are meeting at the Lincolnville Community Library at the beginning of each day, but you can come anytime during the cleanup to be assigned a road and pick up supplies. This event is sponsored by Midcoast Waste Watch and the Lincolnville Community Library.

See more about the day on Facebook. facebook.com/events/1151741311647414/_

American Legion

Camden’s American Legion Post 30 has a good many Lincolnville members, and all are working towards raising funds to overhaul the 50 year-old heating system in their Pearl Street hall. If you’d like to help out (and many of us attend events at this building), there’s a Go Fund Me gofundme.com/war-memorial-post-30-furnace-fund page where you can donate. Or donations can be sent directly to Jeff Sukeforth, Post #30 Adjutant, PO Box 187, Camden, 04843.