During my visit to Nepal, I ordered a power loom and a drum warping machine. The photographs below show the two machines while they were being built locally. I can hardly wait to see them completed!
▼ The power loom being built in Nepal
▼ The drum warping machine ordered together with the power loom
A power loom is a loom driven by an external source of power, such as water, steam, or electricity. The British inventor Edmund Cartwright obtained a patent for the first power loom in 1785. Later improvements and wider adoption mechanized the weaving process and helped transform textile production during the Industrial Revolution.
Although it is generally described as a machine, Hitotsuya（ひとつ屋） deliberately uses the Japanese word kikai, written as 器械, for equipment that works together with human hands rather than completely replacing them.
A drum warping machine prepares the warp threads before weaving begins. It arranges many warp threads to the required length, number, and width, and then winds them onto a drum.
A power loom alone cannot produce cloth. The yarn must first be arranged, warped, and prepared for the loom before weaving can begin. By ordering these two pieces of equipment together, Hitotsuya has taken another step forward in making its own cloth.