Well, I've had four weaving classes now, and I am thoroughly entranced, as I knew I would be. Now that the flurry of parties is over (we had a lovely day with the extended family on Tuesday, celebrating Steph's, Emil's, and Charlie's birthdays, on the 28th, 29th, and 31st, respectively, followed on Wednesday by a lovely evening with Charlie for a 'just-him' celebration), I'm allowing myself to sink into weaving with a passion.

So far I've learned how to measure out the threads that go directly on the loom (this is called 'measuring the warp'), to thread the loom (which is trickier than I'd realized), and to weave with one color and with two colors. This has been enough to make my brain explode with possibility . . . I've dragged out the old Brio loom we got for Em:



. . . and am about to thread it using the blue and white yarn pictured there. I've yet to play with the pattern of the threads; the 'sampler' I'm weaving is very instructive in showing me how some simple patterns will play out, but I'm eager to experiment with many colors and different effects. (Someone once told me that people are drawn to weaving primarily for [a] the textures, [b] the math, or [c] the colors. We both knew where I fit immediately.)

Also, I've realized (again) that this little loom is completely functional for many interesting patterns and designs, and will probably keep me going for quite a while. The 'harness' is what raises and lowers the loom threads; in the most basic weave, first you raise the odd-numbered threads, pull a cross-thread (called a weft thread) through, then lower the odd-numbered threads and raise the even-numbered ones. That maneuver requires two harnesses, which is more or less what I have here.

But, it turns out that it's relatively easy to improvise other harnesses, too. So, I can also experiment with more advanced techniques as well.

And it also turns out that most of what I'm learning I've actually 'learned' before. The last time I got really excited about weaving, I picked up a copy of The Joy of Handweaving by Osma Gallinger Tod, which is an absolute treasure and a classic in the field. Here's a quote from the Introduction: "The loom is one of the most important machines of all time. Rodier says, in his Romance of French Weaving, 'Through all the ages the path of the weaver has been the path of true civilization . . . and there where a loom is waiting, the night of savagery is over.' Whenever tribes settled down long enough between wars to use their hands for domestic purposes, culture took a step forward." I can't argue with that . . . (sort of a direct contrast with the History prof at Penn State-Erie (Clarence will remember him) who told me that history is the story of men's activities because history is the explanation of unrepeatable events, and women's lives were nothing but the same thing over and over . . . )

In addition to the history and the romance, there are a lot of technical details, too. To give you an idea of what that's like, here's a diagram that explains how the threading of the loom results in a design on the fabric:



See? Very detailed, and specific but the explanations are concise.

OK, I'm going to post this and go thread the loom now . . . Stay tuned for more.