weaving the past or a treasure trove of historical threads

husband bought me a loom yesterday. i don't have it home yet and it was just a pile of what appeared to be sticks and other mysterious bits lying on the floor in a basement, so it wasn't really worth photographing yet anyway. it's a 130cm wide lervad loom, an old one, but it's been well-used and well-loved and many a beautiful thing has been created on it. we bought it from a lovely lady who is nearly 80 and who was a member of my weaving group for years. she said she's painting now and doesn't have time or inclination to weave anymore (isn't that a marvelous reason?), so that's why she was selling it. lucky me! along with it, she had a box of binders and a basket of weaving yarn. we had room for that box in the car, so we took that much with us. we'll go back with a trailer when the weather gets better and pick up the loom itself. at first, the binders looked a bit uninteresting, but then last evening, we took a closer look. and we discovered treasure beyond belief.

the binders contain countless weaving patterns and weaving exercises and samples of things she wove over the years. many of the pages are from courses where it was clear that patterns were distributed as hand-written mimeograph copies - so they have that characteristic purple ink and that old familiar smell that takes me back to the 3rd grade (in a good way), but they're in some sweet lady's handwriting. it is simply a priceless historical record of the countless things woven by the lovely lady who owned my loom. taking advantage of a bit of sunshine today, i photographed the contents of one of the binders:

she had carefully noted patterns and yarn samples and accompanying many of the pages are woven samples of the patterns in various different materials. sabin wanted to appropriate some as furnishings for her littlest pet shop, but we discussed how important these are as historical artifacts and now she knows her LPS are not going to have fine carpets anytime soon. there are about 10 binders in all, an absolute treasure trove of 30 years of weaving in denmark. i find it unbelievable that this treasure came with my loom. i'm going to see if i can have them bound into proper books by a bookbinder. and they will have a place of honor in the new blue room, wherever it may be. it just seems like such an invaluable resource.

here are some samples from just one of the notebooks...

i think this may be the very best combined anniversary-valentine's day-upcoming birthday present ever. thank you husband and thank you lovely lady who let me buy your loom.