I am well into threading when I realize I neglected to take into account how many heddles I need for this project! I don’t have 2,064 even if I grab all of the heddles from the other loom. This double weave throw project is at a deadend until more heddles appear. I hurriedly place an order for more heddles…
Thankfully, the new heddles arrive quickly and the project is alive again.
Alive. This is the Easter season when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He died, and was made alive again! What makes it even more fantastic is what that means for us. We all have a goodness shortage. And without a source of true goodness, our lifetime self-improvement project is at a dead end. Yet, through faith in the powerful working of God, we are raised with Christ. We are made alive together with him. His true goodness becomes our living source.
Halfway is a milestone when you are threading 2,064 ends. This double weave in two blocks has threading such that I can listen to podcasts without losing my place. It’s a long stretch to the halfway point.
Before threading, I find the center of the warp and the group of ends that are just past center. I drape those ends on the back beam to mark the spot.
I’m excited to reach halfway in the threading! It’s a turning point. Now, while they are readily accessible, I position all of the shaft-to-lamm cords to hang down, right at the center of the warp where they belong.
Have you ever reached a turning point in life, and knew it was time to position things? We try to be good and loving. But we’re never as good as we think. And we end up loving only the people we want to love. We have been separated from God. Our misdeeds push us away from him. Easter is resurrection, but before that is the cross of Christ. God so loved us that he closed the separation between us and him with the cross. That’s the turning point he offers to us, to set things right. Our part is to believe.
I faced a dead end with this six-shaft weave. The draft requires seventreadles in order to include true plain weave. And I do want plain weave for the hems. That is a problem. This loom has only six treadles. So these double bindingtwill rag rugs were put on hold while I thought about it.
And then I had an idea. What if… I tie the sixth treadle as if it were the seventh treadle, enabling me to weave the plain weave hem. And then, undo the treadle and re-tie it as the sixth treadle for weaving the body of the rug? It works! Essentially, I created seven treadles out of six. What seemed like a dead end became the point of discovering something new.
Can you imagine the dead end the friends and family of Jesus felt when they saw his body go limp on the cross? ……………………………………………………………………………………
Easter is about the excitement of knowing Someone who died and came back to life. In the Easter story, the angel tells the women who arrive at the tomb, “I know you seek Jesus, the Crucified. He is now Jesus, the Risen.” For these women, this moment changed everything. What had seemed like a dreadful dead end became the point of discovering new life. Indeed, even now, a dead end is often the starting point of finding new life in the Risen one.
Easter brings fun things to mind. Spring colors, decorated eggs, pretty dresses. Speaking of pretty dresses, in just one month I will wear my mother-of-the-bride dress, with this handwoven shawl on my shoulders. I am finishing the edge of the shawl with hemstitching on the loom. The hemstitching is decorative, but also has a practical purpose–it secures the warpends and keeps the cloth from unraveling. If all goes as planned, twisted fringe will hang from the hem-stitched edge.
Forgiveness, the truest demonstration of love, is the ultimate security. Do you see how forgiveness serves as a finishing edge that gives beauty and definition to real life? When you know you are forgiven, you are secure in knowing you are loved. To be forgiven–that’s the gift, the meaning, the wonder of Easter. This is love. God so loved the world that he offered forgiveness.