The theme of a local event was Mesoamerican, so I looked up what kind of weaving Mesoamerican folks developed.

They used backstrap looms, with which I was already somewhat familiar, so that’s not as much fun as learning something completely new. They also used horizontal looms, which looked fascinating!

All of the horizontal looms I’ve seen are literally staked into the ground. My Greek warp-weighted loom is extremely portable. I learned the hard way that horizontal looms are very not portable.

I did not intend to move the loom, but the shade kept moving. So I kept pulling up the stakes and resetting the loom. This worked pretty well for the first four times I moved it, but when the sun started baking me AGAIN for the fifth time, I looked for a completely different area to set up in the shade. And I asked for advice about which way the sun would be moving since clearly I couldn’t figure that out for myself. When I lugged everything to the sanity-checked shady spot fifty feet away, the warp threads slipped off their bars.

I had a gnarly ball of yarn instead of a nicely warped loom, but at least I was in the shade.

I managed to completely re-warp the loom, and at that point it was getting dark and I was utterly tired of struggling with it. So I tied the warp strings into bundles this time, and will finish this weaving adventure another time. Maybe set up in the woods this time. Bugs. Never mind. I will confer with my husband and figure out a nice spot in our yard that will reliably stay shaded for several hours.

The instructions I followed are for a Maricopa horizontal loom. As I followed along, I realized that I was really getting into unfamiliar territory. The warp strings make a sideways figure eight. (Or an infinity symbol.) I was also amazed to learn that they didn’t use a shuttle – they just kept yarn in small bunches and pulled it through the sheds. I need to anchor the loom in a shady spot and finish the heddles before I find out how weaving without a shuttle goes.

This is what the loom looked like when I called it a day. Good night, loom. We will have fun another day – in a securely shaded spot.