The loom is a tool with many accessories that helps us make fabric. There are many types of loom, the vertical, the horizontal floor, the table and the waste (widely spread among nomadic peoples).
In Greece and in Europe in general until the 13th century, there was mainly the vertical loom, As these cultures were influenced by the coasts of Africa due to maritime trade starting mainly from Crete Dodecanese and Cyclades the horizontal becomes known to us. Based on this horizontal, the textile industry was developed and evolved during the industrial revolution with the help of electrification and automation.
But let us describe the traditional manual loom as we find it in Kalymnos. Our loom is small horizontal and floor, as functionally it had to fit in the low ceilings. It is made from local pine wood or tar. The warp on the front and back is tensioned on beams, passes through the shafts that are fixed on the wooden riders or the bronze spools as a counter balance loom and they are handled by two wooden pedals.
Yfantra strikes the hanging reed with force attached to the wooden sides, hence the “tak tak your reed does”. It is a synchronization of hands and feet that by pressing the legs with force, the threads are opened so that the shuttle can pass with one hand and by pulling the reed with force to hit the weft, the characteristic sound can be heard. This hand-foot synchronization produces a specific acoustic rhythm that each weaver finds with experience and time. This was the reason why there are many songs were combined with weaving.
The decor, in a variety of colors, are elaborate, depending on the skills of the weaver and the use of the fabrics: pastels, karelias, vagias, kaglai, koutsoufi, mati, etc. their clothes) and the khrami (cover of sheep wool) and the hair (a layer made of goat hair) and the mesala and the mesali and the rasa and the towel and the tsimnia and the permakliki.
Unfortunately, little by little with the industrialization, the profession of the “unseen” was lost and with it the comb (the comb was made by hand by the comb). Thus, the biggest difficulty faced by modern weavers is access to raw materials, as the extermination of the Greek textile industry had a direct impact, while in combination with industrialized imports from low labor costs such as India or China it makes economically unprofitable the profession.
So the few looms that are heard to strike are pure out of passion and craftsmanship to save pieces of our heritage, to be passed on to future generations !