Saying “I’m weaving” always makes me expect to hear “where you going?”. But today, I actually did weave. And I have pictures to prove it.
After I finished threading my heddles, it was time to put the loom back together and add a reed, through which all the heddled threads would also need to be threaded. Ugh. My reed, chosen according to the thickness of my thread, was 16-1; meaning there were 16 thread slots per inch. Luckily, there is a little tool for getting the threads through the reed or else I think I would’ve had to say my goodbyes. (Imagine threading a comb.) However, I have to admit that it took only a short time to get a rhythm going and I ended up making pretty quick work of the task.
So, after threading the reed and doing a couple of loom housekeeping chores, it was time to put a bobbin in a shuttle and weave some junk. Yes, junk. The junk is a few woven lines of thread that keep the warp threads evenly spaced at the very bottom. Junk – so many definitions!
Then it was time to wind the bobbin with my real thread and get down to the real weaving.
After a few passes through the shed with the shuttle, I figured out that having a wandering mind is detrimental to keeping track of which foot treadle was last pressed. Note to self: keep your mind on your feet! I don’t know whether it’s better that my treadles are to be pressed 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, or if it would be better to have some oddball combination of treadle presses, but either way I’m sure I’d have the same problem. Someone walks by and says hi or I think about what I want for dinner and, poof, where was I and which direction was I moving?
Regardless, I made quite a bit of progress, weaving about 18 inches today. Unfortunately, I missed looping correctly over (or was it under?) some of the selvage threads, so, according to the teacher, I now have to cut out about three inches. Oh well. It could be worse!
BTW, the shuttle is NOT a brilliant yellow with absolutely no detail. Thanks to the Retro Camera app I use on my phone, it is; but in real life it’s made of unpainted wood. Crazy. The scarf is also slightly less bright in person, and it’s soft and fuzzy to the touch because of the mohair (the multicolored thread).
