This weekend I began threading the Harrisville loom for the towels I want to weave.

Getting the space set up was important.  The easel holding my plans and tools and the short ottoman for the ease of my back make it a lot easier.  Don’t look to closely at my chicken scratches on the paper.  I didn’t use the computer program for this and there are all kinds of calculations all over it.

Having lots of light is a big help, too.  Because I sley the reed and thread the heddles at the same time using an extra long heddle hook, I have a light over my shoulder to help me see the threads in the cross and another light at the back of the look to help me see through the dents in the reed.

I am threading this at 26 threads per inch (using 10/2 cotton), so with a 12 dent reed, I am threading 2/dent for 5 dents, the 3/dent on the sixth.  Using a pink thread through the 6th dent helps me keep track of my count as I go.

Once I have a section of thread done (100 ends in this project), I am stopping and making sure there are no threading errors.  it is so much easier to fix them at this point rather than waiting until all the loom is threaded.

Then, when I am sure that all is good, I tie off that section to keep it from getting pulled back out or messed up.

I did not get the entire loom threaded, but I hope to have it done before the end of the week.  At 600 ends, this is going to take several hours to do.

Goodness, it feels good to be threading a loom that I actually get to use.  I cannot wait to get to the weaving part.