Hello,

A bit more than 40 years ago, my two partners and I started a business together known as XRX, Inc. Although our main business consisted of a full-service yarn shop, one of our first publishing endeavors was a small book that contained, we hoped, information that would allow weavers using the inexpensive rigid-heddle loom, scope to construct textiles that were, before that, possible only on a shaft loom.

It was an unprepossessing little book—it’s title, The Xenakis Technique for the Construction of Four-Harness Textiles on a Rigid-Heddle Loom was probably the only large thing about it. It was, however, a labor of love, and it began, for me, an exploration over many years into the mysteries of this simple loom. Eventually, that exploration lead our company into its first serial publication with The Prairie Wool Companion magazine (later renamed Weaver’s) which was followed by Knitter’s magazine, then XRX Books, and finally by Stitches Consumer Shows. In my own mind, looking back over those four decades, it seems to me that the spark that lit the fire in our company was that small book over which I labored for many months.

XT—that’s how it’s easiest to refer to it most of the time—has been out of print for many years. However, it is now available for the first time in a digital edition. XRX has also made available as digital editions our Best of Weaver’s book—which contain a great deal of information that is of value to weavers everywhere—but XT arrived first, just as it did those many years ago.

I am so grateful for the support and kindness that weavers have shown me, that I would like to present my original book—mostly unchanged but brought slightly up to date—to everyone as a free gift. It is a work of youth, and it certainly has its eccentricities, but I love it nonetheless, and I hope you will find the information it contains useful!

All my best wishes!

David Xenakis