Cloth before the Industrial Revolution

 Before the industrial use of mechanical looms, this was how our clothes were made.  Yep.  Look to the 1700s and cloth was very precious because of the many woman-hours it took to make - not to mention then to cut and sew into clothing.

Symbolism and Cultural Significance

The Loom is a symbol of cosmic creation and the structure upon which individual destiny is woven. This symbolism is encapsulated in the ancient Greek myth of Arachne who was changed into a spider by the goddess Athene,who was jealous of her skill at the godlike craft of weaving. In Maya Cultures the goddess Ixchel who is symbolized by the moon, taught the first woman how to weave at the beginning of time. (Source: Wikipedia)

 A woman would sit here for many hours, and usually had a wider amount of threads across (I never can remember which is warp and which is woof.)

Last 2 pics are of a standing spinning wheel.  It meant standing while feeding wool or other fibers onto it.

Handloom The Korkosz Croft in Czarna Góra, Poland, Nineteenth Century

Elements of a foot-treadle floor loom

Wood frame Seat for weaver Warp beam- let off Warp threads Back beam or platen Rods – used to make a shed Heddle frame - heald frame - harness Heddle- heald - the eye Shuttle with weft yarn Shed Completed fabric Breast beam Batten with reed comb Batten adjustment Lathe Treadles Cloth roll- takeup

Wikepedia shows the elements of a foot treadle floor loom...

I'll let you read what it says now...

Weaving

See also: Weaving and Textile manufacturing terminology

Weaving demonstration on an 1830 handloom in the weaving museum in Leiden

Weaving is done by intersecting the longitudinal threads, the warp, i.e. "that which is thrown across",^[2] with the transverse threads, the weft, i.e. "that which is woven".
The major components of the loom are the warp beam, heddles, harnesses or shafts (as few as two, four is common, sixteen not unheard of), shuttle, reed and takeup roll. In the loom, yarn processing includes shedding, picking, battening and taking-up operations. These are the principal motions.

• Shedding. Shedding is the raising of part of the warp yarn to form a shed (the vertical space between the raised and unraised warp yarns), through which the filling yarn, carried by the shuttle, can be inserted. On the modern loom, simple and intricate shedding operations are performed automatically by the heddle or heald frame, also known as a harness. This is a rectangular frame to which a series of wires, called heddles or healds, are attached. The yarns are passed through the eye holes of the heddles, which hang vertically from the harnesses. The weave pattern determines which harness controls which warp yarns, and the number of harnesses used depends on the complexity of the weave. Two common methods of controlling the heddles are dobbies and a Jacquard Head.

Shuttles

• Picking. As the harnesses raise the heddles or healds, which raise the warp yarns, the shed is created. The filling yarn is inserted through the shed by a small carrier device called a shuttle. The shuttle is normally pointed at each end to allow passage through the shed. In a traditional shuttle loom, the filling yarn is wound onto a quill, which in turn is mounted in the shuttle. The filling yarn emerges through a hole in the shuttle as it moves across the loom. A single crossing of the shuttle from one side of the loom to the other is known as a pick. As the shuttle moves back and forth across the shed, it weaves an edge, or selvage, on each side of the fabric to prevent the fabric from raveling.
• Battening. Between the heddles and the takeup roll, the warp threads pass through another frame called the reed (which resembles a comb). The portion of the fabric that has already been formed but not yet rolled up on the takeup roll is called the fell. After the shuttle moves across the loom laying down the fill yarn, the weaver uses the reed to press (or batten) each filling yarn against the fell. Conventional shuttle looms can operate at speeds of about 150 to 160 picks per minute.

There are two secondary motions, because with each weaving operation the newly constructed fabric must be wound on a cloth beam. This process is called taking up. At the same time, the warp yarns must be let off or released from the warp beams. To become fully automatic, a loom needs a tertiary motion, the filling stop motion. This will brake the loom if the weft thread breaks.

Thanks for stopping by.  And thanks to the Swannanoa History Museum of Black Mountain NC for the photo opportunity in their antique display.