Topics: The Care and Feeding of Spinning wheels and Looms
Date: November 4, 2025 @ 7:00
Speakers:
Ken and Lorraine Hyatt – Spinning Wheel Maintenance
Dan Lajoie – Loom Maintenance
These 2 presentations will occur concurrently. Both presentations will be live at ELCC. We will attempt to capture each of the presentations on video so the members who are both weavers and spinners, and those unable to attend will be able to watch the presentations after the meeting
Ken Hyatt
While growing up, I took advantage of the opportunity to learn all I could about both wood and metal working. As a teen, working with my father and brother, we built our bedroom furniture, toys and 2 boats. This lead to a career in maintenance that included keeping everything in a one million sq. ft. warehouse running smoothly. The variety of work at times was a huge challenge.
Retirement in 2002, brought new twists! The “Better Half”, learning to spin, announced a spinning wheel would soon be needed. The first wheel, after some research and lots of trial and error, worked good enough. “But, lets make it better!” Now after 90 wheels, they are greatly improved and my skills have adapted to the needs of building new wheels, repairing old wheels, looms and other textile related equipment. Most wheels have been sold through Wellington Fibres in Elora. After 20 years of building wheels, the pleasure and satisfaction of spinning on each new and repaired wheel is hard to put into words.
Dan LaJoie
Textura Vitae:
I bought my first loom around 2005 and played alone on simple projects. With a puffed chest, I would say, “Oh yes, I’ve been a weaver now for x number of years. When I joined the guild in 2013, I was thinking that I could parasitize them for maybe a year, get a bunch of information, and continue on without them. Well, they showed me! They made “THEM” into “US” and “WE”. In 2014, after Pat Zanier’s Beginning Weaving workshop, I would humbly acknowledge, “Oh, I had been weaving for several years.”. More than a decade later, …still here, and in the presence of such an illustrious harmony of artisans, I give a wide-eted head shake and say, “Oh, I’m just still learning.”.
Zen and the Art of Loom Maintenance
In this 45-minute presentation, you will learn to C.A.R.E. for your loom:
Cleaning
Adjusting
Repairing
Expanding
