My Box Project – Seeing Progress, Finally

Introduction:

To make sense of the progress on the loom, check out the post on September 20, 2021, where I show the mockup of the layout for the loom and the box put together. LINK HERE

To see if I could see any progress, I had to take off all the shuttles. It was a challenge to have all 8 shuttles going. And it goes VERY slowly. Just finding which shuttle is next and making sure it enters exactly the right place and isn’t entangled in any of the other wefts is a challenge of patience. When a shuttle falls off onto the floor, it requires some cussing. (When was the last time you heard the word cuss??)

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Most of the time two sides are woven separately as I go. The left side has 2 layers. The right side, 3!

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To keep track of the weaving I put the sheds on pieces of adding machine tape. For the black and white bands, it takes one piece to weave the white stripe and another for the black. Besides, there is a third layer underneath. The left side has only two layers.

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Here you can see where I’ve moved the pin each time a shed has been made. The pin holes help a lot especially when one side or layer gets ahead, and I have to weave only what needs to catch up.

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To keep the layers so they all can be beaten in, I needed to be sure the beater was at its perpendicular-to-the-fell position.

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Many of the sheds needed clearing. I used a weaving sword a lot to clear. Often, I cleared a shed behind the reed to see which warp threads should be up and which down. Did I mention this went VERY slowly? Checking each shed carefully, keeping track of both sides weaving different things, and getting the proper shuttle took an amazing amount of patience. I guess one gets into a zone and just goes along. I felt this must be what a tapestry weaver does.

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The biggest shed is always closest to the reed. That helped a great deal.

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