At Gainsborough, we run three types of looms: traditional dobby and jacquard shuttle looms and modern rapier looms. Dressing the loom involves the same process in all cases: a knotting machine is used to tie the new warp to the one in the loom, thread by thread, allowing the new warp to be pulled through the harness, ready for weaving.

On shuttle and dobby looms, the weft yarns have been wound onto pirns, which are loaded into metal-tipped wooden shuttles. These shoot side-to-side across the loom between the warp threads (in a gap known as ‘the shed’), with each passing of the weft pushed up against the previous one by a reed on the loom, allowing the design to be created. On the jacquard shuttle looms, the design is controlled by large packs of punch cards that either allow the warp threads to be lifted or to stay down, via an intricately-latticed harness; dobby looms are controlled by a system of pegs and lags that operate the shafts, which in turn lift the warp threads.

The rapier looms use cones of weft yarns, which are fed through tensioners and passed through the shed at high speed by bullet-shaped clamps, known as rapier heads. The designs are sent to the loom from our design department digitally, obviating the need for punch cards.

Once woven, all of our fabrics are painstakingly inspected and measured on a large, easel-shaped light table, to ensure that they leave us in immaculate condition, wherever in the world they are destined.