Fiber Monday - Threading, threading, threading

I'm now to the most time consuming part of weaving: the threading. Every piece of yarn on a floor loom needs to be threaded through an individual heddle. (Heddles are on the shafts and they determine when a piece of yarn is raised or lowered.) The blanket I'm weaving for B. and HC's wedding gift has something like 960 ends (or individual pieces of yarn) and is forty inches wide. This is not something I'll be able to finish in a couple of afternoons. It's actually already been a couple of afternoons and I'm four inches shy of the halfway mark. 

Here is what the 16 inches that are threaded look like. 


And here is what is left to do. 


You can see all the yarn that is tied off behind the heddles. Pretty much all that empty space will be filled by the time I'm finished with the threading. It's always a relief to be able to start actually weaving, but because this piece is so wide, I'm anticipating the weaving portion having it's own challenges. This will be my second wide project, but the first was in cotton which slid nicely. This is 50% wool and 50% silk. The yarn likes to stick together making it a little more fussy to weave. It's all about what you learn, right?

I've also been slowly working on the sweater vest I'm knitting.


You can see the cables going up the front now, but I'm still pretty far from the eleven inches I need before I divide for the armholes. I'm definitely not the world's fastest knitter.

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