About Loom shuttles
The loom shuttle is a key piece of weaving equipment. Technically, the definition of a loom shuttle is:
"a device in a loom for passing or shooting the weft thread through the shed from one side of the web to the other, usually consisting of a boat-shaped piece of wood containing a bobbin on which the weft thread is wound."
What this simply means is the loom shuttle is for weaving and holds thread. As it is fed back and forth across other threads it eventually helps to create a fabric, or textile.
Figure 1. Basic diagram of plain weaving showing the warp and weft threads. The loom shuttle carries the weft thread.
In hand weaving the loom shuttle has a handle on both sides of the thread chamber. In fact, these loom shuttles are mostly handle! When looms became automated the shuttle was designed to rifle at great speed and the nice curved handles were removed. Such shuttle are interesting but lack the tactile appeal of hand weaving shuttles.
Our Collection
In vintage collection, every loom shuttle was hand carved in either Laos, Burma or Thailand. Many types of wood are used. But teak, rosewood, paduak and sal wood are among the more common as these trees are or were local to the villages from where these shuttles were carved and used.
Conservation Note: While some of these woods have unfortunately become rare from over harvesting, this decline was surely not due to the locals making tiny loom shuttles! Nor could our collection have placed any significant demand which might further deplete these wood species. In any event, we encourage the respect and conservation of healthy forest ecosystems around the world.
The Meaning of Vintage
The age of these shuttles can be difficult to determine. If a shuttle was used extensively and by a rough weaver it may appear to be antique but perhaps is only 15 or 20 years old. Conversely, if a shuttle was used just a little, or by a gentle master, and then left in a drawer or rice barn for >50 years it might look fairly new and yet be an antique. As such, we cannot be sure and do not claim to know their age. But on average we estimate them to be from 10 - 50 years old. Some are surely much older.
About Weaving
Weaving goes back, way back.. In ancient Egypt people were weaving and still they were not the first.As the core technology for making fabric, the origin of weaving is lost in the recesses of prehistory. It is believed to have evolved independently in several parts of the world, including the Americas, and spread out from these points of origin. Weaving has been an essential and practical occupation in any number of cultures and communities.
Soul of the Weaver
To watch someone hand weaving is to watch one of the most ancient of human activities. It speaks of another time, and a different economy. Weaving can be considered a type of meditation. Not stillness, but with a rhythm and flow like any full member of nature: a fish swimming or a large bird effortlessly flying.
Weaving also has cultural and spiritual significance where the fabrics being made take on great meaning, status and symbolism. The weaver is fully aware of this and her work is surely a labor of love and focused intent.
Each cross thread in a textile is one pass of the shuttle. As the yards of the fabric grow, and years pass by, the weaver is in contact with the shuttle for countless hours. Might these shuttles somehow take on some of the energy, or soul, of the weaver? I believe so. When I hold on to them I feel this other pattern that connects.
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In Summary
For thousands of years the loom was a manual technology. And the part of the loom that perhaps is handled the most is the loom shuttle. Now in the main centers of textile manufacture, looms are almost all machine driven and the shuttle has taken on a very different shape, one that has absolutely no handle. We can be thankful that automation has allowed us to have so much more fabric and clothes in our life.
But as with so many other old ways we have abandoned for faster methods it seems to me we have again lost touch, literally, with the ancient practices and any sense of our ancestors. It is my hope that the Spirit Shuttle can help recover some of that mystery of spirit, and remind us of the gifts of our elders and the sacred joy we can carry forth.
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