Weaving in Beauty

Plans to build a small workshop loom are now available on the site.

When Jennie Slick and I began to teach classes in the Window Rock area, we wanted the looms and tools to be Navajo made.   Henry Lee Dedman in Ft. Defiance, Arizona, developed the  small workshop loom seen in the picture above.  We really like the loom and many students have used the plan for it to build looms for the Navajo Weaving Boot Camp classes that we teach.  I’ve added the plan to the site as a PDF file, and you can print or download it.   The plan is free for your personal use.  As you’ll see in the plan, there are also two books which discuss loom building.  These are Navajo Weaving Way (Bighorse/Bennett, chapter 4) and Navajo and Hopi Weaving Techniques (Pendleton, page 16)

This is part of a project that I’m working on to make resources for learning to weave Navajo style more accessible (yes, I’m still working on the book) and you’ll see regular additions to these under the Learn to Weave! link.    The link to the loom plan will also be there on a permanent basis.  Happy loom building!

Mary Walker