After the previous post the loom is now "dressed". The warp has been measured, the reed and heddles threaded and I didn't go into it in the last post, but either end of the warp is tied onto the front and back and wound tight. *magic!* For weavers, that winding of the warp is a super critical step to get right. Tension tension tension!
But now I want to get into the good part, the reason we do all of that work, the weaving! I just started a new wrap yesterday so I have been able to take some good photos and videos to show the process. It is really difficult to explain, much easier to see how a loom works.
So as I explained,probably poorly, each piece of warp yarn is threaded through a metal heddle on 1 of 8 shafts. The treddles, on my loom, raise up these shafts. I can make treddle 1 raise shaft 1, treddle 2 raise shaft 2, etc...but more often than not you treddles lift more than one shaft. For example, I can set up the loom so that treddle 1 raises shafts 1, 3, 5 &7. Here is a video I made of that. There is no audio because I hate my voice in recording. But you'll see a treddle being pressing which then raises a set of shafts. Those raise the warp yarns that are threaded through them and create a triangular opening called a shed. At the end of the video (sorry it's vertical. I'm an idiot!) you'll see me repress the treddle to close and open the shed again.
So now I have this triangular opening. Each treddle raises a different set of warp threads, so each treddle creates a different shed. This is how weaving patterns are created. I am going to post the draft for the black and brown wrap that I just got done with. So you'll be able to see what a weaving pattern looks like. Probably in the next post. Once the shed is open the weft yarn can be passed through it. This is done via a shuttle, that you throw through the opening from one side and catch on the other side. Once the shuttle is through the shed is closed by lifting off of the treddle
The appropriate shed was opened, The weft has been placed in the opening. So now all that is left to do is move the new weft yarn into place along the edge of the fabric you are creating. This is done with the reed. The reed is the metal tooth thing that we threaded the warp through at a specific spacing (eg- 10 warp yarns per inch). The reed sits in the beater which allows it to move towards and away from you. So here is a video of me putting the new weft into place.
Exciting... And this is the process that is done 1000+ times to make one 6 foot long wrap.
Finally, here is a time lapse of me weaving. During this video I woven about 1/4 of an inch