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Kissing the shuttle


"Kissing the shuttle" is the term for a process by which weavers used their mouths to pull thread through the eye of a shuttle when the pirn was replaced. The same shuttles were used by many weavers, and the practice was unpopular. It was outlawed in the U.S. state of Massachusetts in 1911 but continued even after it had been outlawed in Lancashire, England in 1952. The Lancashire cotton industry was loath to invest in hand-threaded shuttles, or in the more productive Northrop automatic looms with self-threading shuttles, which were introduced in 1902.

For 100 years the weaving sheds of Lancashire had been equipped with cast iron constructed looms not dissimilar to the original Roberts loom, invented by Richard Roberts. They were driven by leather belts from line shafts. They were closely packed together in pairs separated a narrow alley. One weaver was responsible for four looms; it was her duty (they were almost always girls or women) to replace the weft in the shuttle when it ran out. The weft was wound onto a removable holder called a pirn which was held in the middle of the shuttle. The weaver stopped the loom, found the shuttle, removed it, and bent the shuttle peg holding the pirn towards her, removed the pirn and replaced it with a fresh one. The shuttle had a hole at the end, known as the eye, through which the weft passed. She placed a loop of thread next to the inside edge of the eye and in an operation called "Kissing the shuttle", sucked it through. The shuttle was ready. It was placed back in the sley, All loose threads cut off and removed. A final check was made and the loom was restarted. A typical loom operated at 220 picks per minute and the weaver was paid by the piece. The weaver was adept at balancing her work, keeping all the looms working, so only one would be stopped for replenishment at one time. Labour costs were a significant proportion of the cost of producing cloth.


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