Sorry about the long delay. Here are some details on the path the thread takes from spool to loom. This is trickier task than it seems and I went through several versions before I found something that should work. So far it has passed a short threaded test run, but I'm not yet confident about it's performance in a full seven hour job. We'll see. Anyway, here's a rough schematic of it.

The tensioner is two wood blocks with strips of bike tube hot glued to make friction surfaces. They are screwed together with adjustable tightness and the thread runs between the rubber strips. Here's a pic.

The other major part is the thread dispensing solenoid. I glued a piece of a dollar store cosmetics syringe on the solenoid. The thread passes through the very small steel tube. It is kept from rotating by a wood guide.

I'm sorry I don't have a video of the things running yet. I'm just a little short on time these days. I'll post one as soon as I can, though.

Oh, and I decided my motor setup was just not good enough to trust with a full run, so I ordered a nicer geared motor from ebay and am waiting for it to arrive.