June 11th 2013: Learning to do Rigid Heddle Weaving at The Weaving Shed, West Boylston

Today after work was my first class of 3 to try my hand at rigid heddle weaving at The Weaving Shed in the town of West Boylston.

I decided to leave work early to grab some dinner at Taty's Specialty Restaurant, a small, family style Italian/Mediterranean/Brazilian restaurant in town.

For food, I decided to try the Fassoulia appetizer, consisting of Mediterranean kidney beans,prepared with fresh garlic, fresh parsley, imported spices, and olive oil,

and the Ali Pork (White rice, black beans, two center-cut Pork Chops, side of garden salad, french fries)

The beans were actually really tasty, and I was sad after I finished them all. The pork however, was a little disappointing, being a little dry, and a little bitter due to the grilled portions. Overall, just average I guess.

When I arrived at the weaving place, I could not tell where it was, but I spotted the Pinecroft Dairy and Restaurant, so I decided to go inside and ask them the whereabouts of my final destination for the day, and get a scoop of ice cream at the same time.

Apparently the place was just around the corner, but thankfully I stopped here, because the Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip Yogurt ice cream I got was actually pretty good.

After trudging through the heavy rain to get to the weaving place, which is located on the second floor in a small room, I was able to eat my ice cream while waiting for everyone to arrive, as well as take pictures of the looms

and the spindles of yarn made of all sorts of textile materials in the room.

When everyone arrived, we were told to select the cotton yarn colors we wanted to use for our weaving today. I decided to go with a blue color, as well as another in white.

After watching the demonstration of where to start,

I proceeded to do so by tying my yarn to the loom in a double knot, like so.

Next, I had to loop the string through the large slots in the rigid heddle and stretch it to the other side of the room

to loop around a pole located there, alternating between going over and under the stick my string was tied to.

When changing between colors, I had to cut and tie double knots for both the start and end of each color before proceeding to slot the string into all the slots until they were all filled.

Next, it was time to roll up the strings, using paper to separate the different layers to prevent entaglement.

Next, it was to to take out the scissors and start snipping,

placing the left piece of string through the small hole in the heddle.

I took really long to perform this step, becoming the slowest in the class where I was the only guy.

After doing this, the next step was to tie the strings in batches into surgeon's knots onto the bar on the other side of the loom.

In order to keep the strings equidistant from each other, a length of waste string was used, tied onto a string shuttle, which was then brought through the strings alternating from left to right, with the heddle having to be moved from upward to downward positions to alternatingly lift the right layer of strings and the left layer to create a hole through which to pass the shuttle.

Once complete, the heddle was moved toward the end of the waste string and pushed until there is resistance to the motion, which kept the actual strings I was using equidistant from each other. From here, we proceeded to wind the strings we wanted to use onto our shuttle,

and then the real weaving began, proceeding like with the waste string, except that with each pass, the heddle has to be used to press the string downwards to maintain the nice pattern.

After a few more turns, the instructor told us it was the end of class, upon which we had to select a few balls of yarn of different materials to try out while we were at home, bringing home the loom and the other materials as well.

Man, they should have told me there would be homework. I don't know if I can do any the rest of the week, considering I am going to learn to fly a plane tomorrow.