Help us bring home a special loom
Donation protected
Dartmoor Tweed is a non profit community weave project. We use heritage looms and Devon grown wool to make beautiful cloth and we teach anyone who wants to learn each step in the fleece to fabric and fashion process. Devon was once really wealthy on the back of its cloth production and a lot of our towns and villages grew because of it - its around us in our buildings and even our surnames. Right now, we need you to reach into your roots and help us make something amazing happen for the future.
The lovely folks at Farfield Mill in Cumbria yesterday offered us an old but still working Dob Cross Loom and we need to get it hauled back to Devon by next Saturday (the 16th) or it will be broken for scrap value. It's one of only 50 of these looms left working in the world today so to make this happen and ensure its preserved for the future we need to raise £750 - it weighs 2 tons so we cant move it on our own and need the help of a haulage company with special bits of kit.
The Dob Cross will be a really important loom for us. We have a range of heritage looms - our oldest is from 1642 and all of them are in working order. We dont hide our looms behind ropes for people to look at - we want them to be used.
Right now we work on human powered Hattersley Domestic looms - the same ones used on the Isle of Harris to make Harris Tweed. They are great for teaching and make good cloth but they are slow. The Dob Cross is quick compared to these and any kind of fabric can be made on it from blankets to silk. Having it helps the project to become sustainable and opens up a load of new opportunities.
Whilst having the Dob Cross helps us to up production and become more sustainable it will also help us achieve one of the things we really want to do - use our cloth to work with young people to create a community owned and grown fashion label that creates new skills and employment. Doing this means we can buy more wool from our farmers giving them a decent price for their wool. All of this creates new supply chains which everyone can be part of.
Also we are involved in putting one of Devon's oldest Woollen Mills at North Tawton back into use so people can get to grips with our woolly heritage but also think about how wool and cloth can form part of our future economy. Having the Dob Cross completes our set of cloth making machinary from pre to post industrialisation not in a museum space but in one that is publically accessible, creative and more importantly, still working.
Please help us rescue and rehome the loom - we only have a week!
** PLEASE NOTE**
We've had to increase the amount we need to raise from £1000 to £1500 to pay for a specialist Tele handler (its essentially a rotating fork lift but bigger) to get the loom out of Farfield Mill. The contractors have told us that they have to come round a tight 90 degree corner into a 1/6 hill with a slope on the other side. The loom and the vehicle makes a load of 5 meters long and it's quite a dangerous operation. So we need to raise an additional £300.
Can we do it do you think? Who's up for the challenge?
xx
The lovely folks at Farfield Mill in Cumbria yesterday offered us an old but still working Dob Cross Loom and we need to get it hauled back to Devon by next Saturday (the 16th) or it will be broken for scrap value. It's one of only 50 of these looms left working in the world today so to make this happen and ensure its preserved for the future we need to raise £750 - it weighs 2 tons so we cant move it on our own and need the help of a haulage company with special bits of kit.
The Dob Cross will be a really important loom for us. We have a range of heritage looms - our oldest is from 1642 and all of them are in working order. We dont hide our looms behind ropes for people to look at - we want them to be used.
Right now we work on human powered Hattersley Domestic looms - the same ones used on the Isle of Harris to make Harris Tweed. They are great for teaching and make good cloth but they are slow. The Dob Cross is quick compared to these and any kind of fabric can be made on it from blankets to silk. Having it helps the project to become sustainable and opens up a load of new opportunities.
Whilst having the Dob Cross helps us to up production and become more sustainable it will also help us achieve one of the things we really want to do - use our cloth to work with young people to create a community owned and grown fashion label that creates new skills and employment. Doing this means we can buy more wool from our farmers giving them a decent price for their wool. All of this creates new supply chains which everyone can be part of.
Also we are involved in putting one of Devon's oldest Woollen Mills at North Tawton back into use so people can get to grips with our woolly heritage but also think about how wool and cloth can form part of our future economy. Having the Dob Cross completes our set of cloth making machinary from pre to post industrialisation not in a museum space but in one that is publically accessible, creative and more importantly, still working.
Please help us rescue and rehome the loom - we only have a week!
** PLEASE NOTE**
We've had to increase the amount we need to raise from £1000 to £1500 to pay for a specialist Tele handler (its essentially a rotating fork lift but bigger) to get the loom out of Farfield Mill. The contractors have told us that they have to come round a tight 90 degree corner into a 1/6 hill with a slope on the other side. The loom and the vehicle makes a load of 5 meters long and it's quite a dangerous operation. So we need to raise an additional £300.
Can we do it do you think? Who's up for the challenge?
xx
Organizer
Dartmoor Tweed
Organizer