GALION – Rodney Dean is a crafter of a different kind.
He makes one-of-a-kind rugs and table runners, all woven on an antique loom built by his great-great-grandfather, John Dean, more than 200 years ago. A massive two-rack weaving device made entirely of wood. A family “heirloom” in every sense.
“I remember going to my grandparents’ house as a kid and you would hear that noise and you knew grandma was up and working,” Dean recalled. “When I got it, it was in pieces. We worked on that loom for a week before we figured out how to put it back together.”
That was six years ago when Dean’s dad died. Since then, he and his wife, Maggie, have turned out thousands of colorful creations from that six-foot tall loom. Every piece stitched with love. Handmade with “lots of arm labor.” And bearing a “Dean’s Cabin Crafters” tag.
It was definitely trial and error for about a year, Dean admitted, but a YouTube video proved to be a Godsend. A rag rug was his first project, created from old cut-up T-shirts and pants, and reminiscent of the two-by-four-foot rugs his grandparents made during the Great Depression.
Dean’s loom, which overpowers his living room, is built of pine or oak – he’s not sure. Solid wood gears. Wooden pegs. Three-hundred strings across, with metal added to the racks and beater bar by his grandfather, who operated a sawmill in West Virginia.
Dean, 65, retreats to his “loom room” most days when he gets off work at Galion City Schools, winding spools of warp or cotton string and wrapping one-inch wide strips of cloth cut from cotton sheets around the handmade pine shuttles.
“The harder you beat that back, the tighter a rug you’ll get,” Dean explained as he stepped on the pedal to demonstrate the technique. “I think it’s kind of relaxing. I’ll turn on the news or a ballgame and just start looming. It’s pretty neat just to watch it come together.”
Maggie does most of the prep work, such as cutting the fabric and figuring out countless color combinations and patterns. The ends of every finished piece are then tied into square knots, five strings at a time. It’s tedious, and time-consuming.
“I put all the colors together. He does everything else,” Maggie said. “Every once and a while I’ll do a themed rug or even one in pink and neon green and he’s like, ‘I can’t believe you did that’ but it usually sells.”
The pair peddle hundreds of table runners and fuzzy and fleece rugs at area craft shows and flea markets, where Dean demonstrates the ancient craft on a smaller collapsible loom. Recently they have added cross-body purses to their product line.
Although the Deans have now acquired eight looms in all, including some built in Sweden and Canada, none is more special than the oldest one of all.
“I’ve always wondered, did he see one of these sometime and know how to build it or what? You just don’t know,” Dean said, referring to his great-great-grandfather. “It’s amazing. It’s indescribable, actually. If it could talk.
“Hopefully someday one of my three boys are interested in it too and then it’ll stay in the family for a few hundred more years.”
