"Outside Japan's cities and towns, it is no exaggeration to say that a century ago every household had at least one operative loom."
Japan is a textile country.
"I am told it takes considerable experience to achieve the rhythmical clackity clack of working on a hand loom because weaving requires coordination of the whole body. Since it engages every part of the body right to the fingertips, people are said to never suffer from dementia in old age as long as they continue to weave."
Shinshu pongee (by the way "pongee" apparently comes from the Chinese 本織, "own weaving").
From the impressive Traditional Crafts of Japan site (via Mefi). Here's a montage of the site.
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Ms Shingaki tells me that the one thing to remember when weaving is to stay calm and composed. "If you are agitated or in a bad mood you will make mistakes and it might take you a whole day to undo what you did. I stopped arguing with my husband 20 years ago because it wasn't good for my weaving," she quips. "And if I simply can't control my temper I decide not to weave that day."
...
Her husband is her own biggest critic, but she says, "He has never praised my work, and it's almost as if I have kept weaving all these years in the hope of hearing him praise me just once. I wonder how many more years that will be."