On Saturday, two of our directors had a chance to visit one of our old projects: the Replica Jacquard Loom at Lang Pioneer Village Museum, south-east of Peterborough. In 2002 and in 2011, we funded the re-building of Jacquard looms that were used in the Peterborough area in the 1880’s by Samuel Lowry. In the 1900’s they fell into disrepair, came close to being destroyed, and were bought for $10 in 1956, by Mrs. Dini Moes. She in turn donated what was left of them to LPVM in 1973. Incredibly, at the time the re-build project started, there were only 5 Jacquard looms in North America and Lang Pioneer Village Museum had 2 of them!  Fortuitously, there was an expert weaver and cabinetmaker, Didier Schvartz, in the community, who committed his skill and hundreds of hours to the project.

What started as the rebuilding of the looms has grown onto the Samuel Lowry Interpretive Centre  for weaving, the Festival of Textiles and ongoing Master Classes in fabric arts and technology. Many groups and dozens of people contributed to this program, both financially and with huge amounts of volunteer time, and we are proud to have been a small part of it.