Reed And Shuttles

Day 114: My collection of weaving accoutrements is growing, and now includes two antique rag bobbins, a gift from sister-of-my-heart Mousie. They belonged to her oldest friend's mother and grandmother, and I feel very privileged that she managed to convince the friend to part with them on my behalf. I have been wanting to do some rag-woven rugs, but had no shuttles large enough to hold more than just a few yards of prepared fabric. On the other hand, the 15-dent reed behind them is brand-new and will be used for finer pieces similar to the table runners I'm presently making. The runners are warped at 15 dents using a 4.5" high reed from my table loom. My floor loom takes a 5" reed, so I had to be inventive. I started off by padding the channel with foam and cardboard. I did a test run and the reed stayed in place. However, after working about a foot and a half of the actual cloth, the reed jumped out of its track and was left dangling by the warp! I reinstalled it with only a minor amount of profanity, but for additional security, I wired it in. As a stop-gap measure, it works, but I realized that since most of my weaving is done with 8/2 cotton, I really needed a 15-dent reed which was made to fit the loom. Old or new, a weaver needs the proper tools.