I’m assuming it was snow that kept the teacher away today, but luckily we had the teacher’s regular helper and quite a few other students with experience to keep us newbies moving along. In fact, I feel like I accomplished more today than on previous days since it was pretty much nose-to-the-grindstone and very little chatting. Which is fine with me – for an endeavor with so many details to learn, it’s good to spend some time really honing in on the nuts and bolts.
But anyway, my warp is now on the loom and wound nice and tight. It was demonstrated last week as a two-person job, but I was actually able to do it myself with some guidance (which made things go much faster, not having to rely on someone else).
After winding the warp, it’s time to thread the heddles. (I know, right?! This language just gets funnier all the time.) The heddles are long metal sticks with a center hole and are held on each harness. The harnesses are operated by the foot pedals, up and down, and control the space where that little slidey thing shoots through. (We haven’t covered that part yet, but I’m certain the technical name is not “slidey thing”.)
The heddles are threaded using the pattern which will form the design in my scarf, i.e., heddle 1, 2, 3, 4; 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4; etc., until each thread is through its own little heddle hole. Believe it or not, this is back-breaking work. Sitting on a high bench, you’re bent over at the waist, arms outstretched, grasping just the right thread, feeding it through the heddle hole, over and over, for hundreds of threads. So, in addition to riding my exercise bike I’m going to have to do some lat pulls to toughen up those back muscles!!
Next week, I will thread the left-side heddles and then it will be time to start weaving for real!
