Here is my loom. Most of it is made of bird's eye maple, which is a beautiful wood. The "eyes" are shimmery and opalescent. I've added some arrows to point out some of the features of the loom. This is to help myself, and anyone reading, to learn the names of the loom parts. There is a lot of new vocabulary one has to learn to get into the biz of weaving.

arrow #1. The cloth beam, onto which the newly woven fabric is rolled up (until it's finished and taken off the loom).

arrow #2. The reed. This piece is like a comb. The warp, which makes up the vertical face (?) of the woven fabric, is threaded through the spaces of the reed (called the 'dents'). The act of threading the warp through the reed is called 'sleighing'.

arrow #3. Levers that are used to lift the shafts. There are 4 shafts, thus 4 levers, on this loom. Each shaft holds a number of 'heddles' (can't see them in this pic) through which the warp is threaded after it goes through the reed. Lifting the shafts in different sequences creates the different weaving patterns. From what I understand, 4 shafts are enough to produce essentially infinite pattern possibilities. Still, looms with 8, 12, or more shafts are available.