White warp threads stretched taut across the wooden beams of a floor loom, lit from the front.

Hand-weaving atelier

The cloth, and the making of it.

Warped by hand, threaded by hand, thrown by hand and wet-finished on the bench. Everything here is made at the speed of the loom, which is slower than you think and exactly as slow as it needs to be.

Commission a clothSee the process ↓

Position

Unhurried is a specification, not a mood.

A dense run of fine white warp threads on a loom, seen close up at an angle.

A power loom can weave in an hour what takes this studio a week, and it will weave it evenly. We are not competing with that. What a hand loom gives you is the decision — every pick is a choice about tension, beat and sett, and those choices are what you feel when the cloth is in your hands rather than on a screen.

So the studio is organised around not rushing. One warp on the loom at a time. Samples woven before a commission is accepted, not after. Cloth washed and rested before it is called finished, because linen moves when it is wet and there is no arguing with it.

The consequence is that we make a small amount of cloth and know all of it. Every length can be traced back to its warp plan, its reed, and the week it was on the loom.

Studio founded · TBD — this is a fictional atelier

The sample book

Four cloths, off the loom this season.

Each is woven on a four-shaft floor loom and finished by hand. Weights are measured off the finished piece, not the warp plan, so they move a little between lengths.

Macro of undyed plain-weave linen, a frayed raw edge running across the frame.

Undyed Plain

01

Line flax · Plain, 1/1 · 210 g/m² · 94 cm finished

Macro of a rust-brown woven cloth, the fine diagonal ridge of a twill running through it.

Bench Twill

02

Lambswool · Twill, 2/2 · 340 g/m² · 76 cm finished

A folded length of red-and-white cloth in close-up, its frayed raw edge crossing the frame.

Madder Edge

03

Flax, madder-dyed · Plain, raw selvedge · 170 g/m² · 88 cm finished

A stack of folded olive linen photographed edge-on, fold creases stepping up the frame.

Selvedge Stack

04

Flax, mixed lots · Plain, hand-hemmed · 260 g/m² · 64 cm finished

The process

Four movements, in the order they must happen.

Cones and spools of thread stacked on a workshop rack beside a fan of colour swatches.
Heddle cords hanging in rows from the shafts of a loom, the warp running beneath them.
A weaver at a wooden table loom, working across the warp with tools and a tape measure in the frame.
  1. 01

    Warping

    The warp is measured on the mill thread by thread, then beamed onto the back roller under even tension. Nothing done later can fix a warp that was beamed badly.

  2. 02

    Threading

    Every end is drawn through its heddle and its dent of the reed, in the order the draft calls for. Miss one and the cloth will tell you, twenty picks in.

  3. 03

    Weaving

    The shuttle travels, the beater closes the pick, the treadles change the shed. It is a rhythm long before it is a technique.

  4. 04

    Finishing

    Off the loom the cloth is washed, pressed and left to settle until it has stopped moving. Only then is it a piece rather than a length.

Specifications

What the studio can actually make.

Loom
Four-shaft countermarch, treadle
Weaving width
120 cm maximum in the reed
Reeds held
8, 10 and 12 dents per inch
Working sett
16 to 40 ends per inch
Fibres
Line flax, lambswool, hemp
Warp length
Up to 12 m on the beam
Finishing
Hand wash, mangle, cold press
Registered
TBD
Studio address
TBD
Telephone
TBD

The cloths and the figures above describe a fictional catalogue. Facts about a real business — registration, address, telephone — read TBD rather than a plausible number.

Four wound bobbins of thread standing in a row, the windings in sharp focus against a plain ground.

The atelier

One room, three looms, and the light it was built for.

A stone-walled weaving workshop: an upright loom strung with cloth, a patterned rug hanging beside it.

Ground floor, north light, no music before noon

The looms face the windows because cloth has to be judged in daylight and nowhere else. Warping happens along the back wall, finishing at the wet bench, and the pieces hang until they have stopped moving. Visits are by arrangement.

Studio address · TBD

Hands pressing a patterned cloth flat on a table with a steam iron.

Photographs are licensed stock, credited in full in the colophon

Commission

Tell us what the cloth is for.

A commission begins with a conversation about use: a runner for a table that is too long, curtain cloth for a window with bad light, a length of twill for a coat. From that we propose a fibre, a sett and a weight, weave a sample, and only then put a warp on the loom. You see the sample before anything is committed.

There is no order form here and no price list, because this is a demonstration template rather than a working studio.

How to enquire
Plain weave, 1/1 — the draft every commission starts from