This is my Harrisville rug loom. I don't know anyone else who weaves tapestry on one, but I would like to recommend it as a fantastic tapestry loom.
I love one feature of the Harrisville rug loom especially. The warp extender. This ingenious little addition to the countermarche loom keeps the tension even throughout the piece. The tension is superb both because it is a big floor loom with a worm gear and because of this warp extender. The warp extender allows me to raise the warp away from the warp beam as far as I need to for the piece I am going to weave.
When the warp threads are wrapped around and around a back beam, they fall in between each other and the tension in my experience is never even when you start advancing. Even if you are one of the million-stick-club and you are very meticulous about winding your warp with sticks, things can go awry easily. The warp extender pulls all the threads up evenly around a smooth steel tube. You start your tapestry with the extender raised, tie on and get everything even, and then as you weave and pull the piece forward, instead of unwinding the warp beam, you lower the extender. Genius.
And of course it is a countermarche loom and I love the fact that the warp threads get pulled evenly from either direction on each shed. I like things even. Perhaps it is a good thing for tapestry or perhaps I just have a touch of OCD.
This picture is looking from the front of the loom toward the back with the warp extender raised.
This picture is from the back of the loom looking at the raised warp and the warp beam.
Incidentally, I never warp sectionally even though both my floor looms have sectional beams. If I knew I was going to use a fairly consistent warp width on this loom, I might consider it just to get a lot of yards on at once. But I find sectional warping picky and not actually that great a method if you're looking for a very even warp. (I felt guilty about not warping sectionally for a long time--I have the spool rack and the tension box and the little counter to count yards, but I finally reached a place where I decided I could do things my own way and didn't have to listen to all the old teachers voices echoing in my head. My head is much quieter now.) I usually just put on enough warp for a couple tapestries, which, after all, are going to take many months to finish... and by the end of all that I'm probably going to want to try something different anyway.
When the warp threads are wrapped around and around a back beam, they fall in between each other and the tension in my experience is never even when you start advancing. Even if you are one of the million-stick-club and you are very meticulous about winding your warp with sticks, things can go awry easily. The warp extender pulls all the threads up evenly around a smooth steel tube. You start your tapestry with the extender raised, tie on and get everything even, and then as you weave and pull the piece forward, instead of unwinding the warp beam, you lower the extender. Genius.
And of course it is a countermarche loom and I love the fact that the warp threads get pulled evenly from either direction on each shed. I like things even. Perhaps it is a good thing for tapestry or perhaps I just have a touch of OCD.
This picture is looking from the front of the loom toward the back with the warp extender raised.