Eerie Stanek Loom-Room and the Shuttle That Strayed

A muted gravity settles inside Stanek House, centered in the loom-room, where wool once hummed under measured footwork. Here Ivana Elzbieta Stanek shaped blankets prized across mountain villages. Now the stray shuttle holds the quiet, marking the line where her certainty loosened.

Even the soft scent of lanolin seems to pause, as if unsure whether to rise or settle.

Thread in the Weaver’s Measured Craft

Ivana, weaver, born 1876 near Kraków, learned patterns from her mother Danuta Stanek, whose carved shuttle rests atop a folded apron. Each dawn she spun coarse wool; by noon she warped beams; evenings found her beating cloth into tight, resilient weft. Her order endures—reeds sorted by dent, combs cleaned of burrs, pattern cards stacked in narrow drawers. Even the loom bench bears a smooth depression where she sat for hours, shaping rhythm into cloth until silence and motion nearly blended.

When Her Pattern Lost Its Line

Whispers spread that a commissioned blanket bore uneven tension, its border drifting off pattern. In the supply cubby, a cone of dyed wool lies crushed, imprinting shallow ridges in its side. Danuta’s carved shuttle shows a fresh nick. A bundle of draft notes has slipped from its string, corners bent, ink smudged at one edge. Even the warp beam’s ties sag in one section, as though retied with an uncertain hand. These signs outline strain but never declare its cause, forming a muted map of doubt in a room once ruled by precision.

Only the stray shuttle remains, its path broken above the cloth. Whatever caught Ivana’s final breath lingers in the loom-room’s hushed weave.

Stanek House remains abandoned still.