The Shed Is the Gap

First session of the rigid heddle weaving class was last Thursday and I have been sitting with how to write about it for five days, which is about four days longer than it deserves and also exactly right.

Here is what I knew going in: nothing. Here is what I know now: the shed is the gap the shuttle passes through, the heddle is the frame that makes the gap, and the swatch I produced in ninety minutes is narrower at one end than the other in a way my instructor described as 'characteristic of beginners' and which I am choosing to read as charming. I took notes. The notes say things like 'warp = vertical, weft = horizontal' and 'BEAT EVENLY' in capitals I apparently needed.

the swatch. slightly uneven. mine.

What I keep returning to isn't the weaving itself, exactly. It's the particular quality of attention the first session of anything requires, the kind where you can't coast, can't autopilot, have to actually be inside the minute because the minute has too many new words in it. The loom and I came to something like a mutual understanding around the forty-minute mark. The swatch is uneven. It is also completely mine.

notes I will refer to never

The prints are still leaning against the kitchen wall. The cord is still on the windowsill. I don't know if this becomes anything. Thursday was just Thursday, ninety minutes and a slightly lopsided rectangle of yarn. That feels like enough to say about it for now.