I also have done a lot of weaving through the years. My high school had 10 floor looms and about 25 table looms and we had a wonderful art teacher who taught weaving as an art elective. She taught us all kinds of weaving (even under water basket weaving and rafia coil baskets) in her class. She also would include units on cleaning, carding and spinning your own yarn, using natural dyes to dye your own yarns and threads, embroidery, needlepoint and pettipoint, quilting, and sewing using a pattern you made yourself, since her class was so popular that there weren’t enough looms to go around for each student to have one to use exclusively.
Only her second year students and her student teachers got to actually use the large floor looms for a project and you had to be one of her student teachers to earn the privledge of the use of one of the large floor looms for large projects like blankets that would take most of the school year to complete. Her class created such beautiful masterpieces that after seeing them I had to take her class. I ended up enjoying it so much I took both the first and second levels of her class, and then was her student teacher my senior year which gave me the right to exclusive use for the year of one of the floor looms.
Who would have thought two weavers would run into eachother on FR, since there really are not that many people in the US that do weaving these days? I don’t have a floor loom myself, but I have used them a lot before. I also do finger weaving and have two table top Inca looms, but they are only wide enough to do something as wide as a larger table runner.
I am a decent seamstress and sew more than most people do these days, however, like you I hate sewing too. I stick mainly to hemming new clothes for my family, and mending for the most part, but I could make my own clothes if I had to do so and they would look nice.
I can knit quite well, but I prefer to crochet. I make mostly afghans and baby blankets, these days, since I like to be able to practically do it in my sleep with out having to do a lot of counting.
I hope we won’t need these skills either, but I am still teaching them to my children anyway. The are just hobbies at the moment, but they are skills that sure could come in handy if the economy keep getting worse.
I have a set of older books that an older lady gave me several years ago when my daughters were small that explain how to do all sorts of things that were once common place, but no one does any more. At the time my young daughters and I had just finished reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder set of books together and they had wanted to try making their own cheese, soap, maple syrup candy, etc. just like the Ingalls girls did. When this lady heard that we had made our own cheese and churned our own butter, she said she knew that she had found the right person to pass the books on to since her own children didn’t want them.
Since we are getting ready to move in the next few months I have them packed up at the moment but the books are really great fun. They tell how to do just about anything that the pioneers did, and even give instructions for making many home remedies for various ailments. I told my husband as I was packing them up that if things get much worse we may find those books very helpful.
I love the quote you mentioned too!
I do a lot of woodworking (with hand tools) and have thought of a future project making a spinning wheel. It would have to be a bit in the future as I am still a novice on the lathe.
People here are always posting that FR has the greatest collection of skills in one place. You can ask almost any question and someone will have the answer. Often, several someones.
I sold all my looms, including a 60” dobby, years ago. I wove 22-36 epi yardage and then sewed it into clothing that I sold at juried craft fairs, back in the 1980s. Production weaving is very hard on the back!
I have learned to make socks on the round knotting loom. Much easier than w/needles, but still takes 6 days to make a pair. I like to knit them oversized in wool and then felt them down for house socks.
I live in an area of cheese factories, artisan foodies and organic farms. We even have commercial production soap makers. My husband does medical massage therapy, so I think we will end up trading for a lot of these types of things. But, we were part of the 1970s Back To The Land Movement and we still have all the Foxfire books. Most of the people I know are fairly self-sufficient.
You know, we all expected TEOTWAWKI back then, under Carter and then turned our preps into businesses. The Second American Arts and Crafts Movement. Now, we are proficient and can turn our businesses back into survival. I just wish I was still in my 30s. This is all a lot of hard work, especially for seniors, which is why my husband has retained his practice.