cloth-beam

Updated: May 7, 2025

The lower beam of the loom is shown at k. I will call this the cloth-beam, although the finished web is never wound around it; it is tied firmly to the lower brace, c, of the frame, and to it is secured the lower border cord of the blanket. The original distance between the two beams is the length of the blanket.

Washington Matthews - Navajo weavers: Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the: Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1881-'82,: Government Printing Office, Washington, 1884, pages 371-392.

The lateral edges of the blanket are similarly protected by stout cords applied to the weft. The way in which these are woven in, next demands our attention. Two stout worsted cords, tied together, are firmly attached at each end of the cloth-beam just outside of the warp; they are then carried upwards and loosely tied to the yarn-beam or the supplementary yarn-beam.

Washington Matthews - Navajo weavers: Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the: Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1881-'82,: Government Printing Office, Washington, 1884, pages 371-392.