Weaving 101 - Throwing the Shuttle, Finally

Time to actually do some weaving! (Though you really have to think of the whole process as weaving if you're going to be a Happy Weaver... Dressing the loom is described in the two posts below this one.)

First, I used a heavy-ish (4/2) blue cotton yarn as a "waste" yarn to weave the header. Before I started to weave, though, I had to check my sheds to make sure they are clear, with no crossed threads, etc., that would indicate a threading error (which I very, very rarely make, thank the high heavens). So, I tromped on my treadle that raises shafts 1-3-5-7:

All set! I checked the shed for 2-4-6-8 as well, coaxing the yarn to separate when I needed too, since fuzzy yarns do tend to stick together a little bit at first.

Time to weave!

Yeesh. That is one washed out photo. But you get the idea. The blue waste/header yarn spreads the warp ends out evenly and gives you a straight edge to beat against. I'll weave about two inches of tabby weave hem with my curry-colored zephyr and then I'll do the tie-ups for the twill pattern Kivy and I chose for this project and get going on the body of the shawl.

(Note for weaving newbies - that's my shuttle in the top left of this photo. You wind yarn onto a bobbin, using a yarn winder - Bella loves to help turn the handle - pop the bobbin into the shuttle, and throw the shuttle through the sheds as you create them. Theoretically the yarn unwinds nice and smoothly from the bobbin.)

So far so good! And so nice to finally be throwing the shuttle on this project...