threading the heddles

The next step in this process was to thread the warp through the heddles. That means taking each thread, one by one, and snaking them through the eye of the proper heddle. The pattern of heddles depends on the pattern that you want to weave. In my case, I'm weaving a Swedish rosepath pattern, as per the instructions I'm following. Apparently it's a pretty simple pattern. I started by threading the first 4 warp threads through the first heddles on shafts 4, 3, 2, and 1. The counting was done from the back side of the loom, so the threading went from the right side of the weaving to the left. This first pattern is called the selvedge, and it will define the edge of the weaving. The next threading went like this: shaft 4, 3, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 1. Then I repeated this pattern about 23 times. This makes the rosepath pattern all across the weaving. The picture shows the first selvedge and the first 2 rosepath patterns.

This is another pic, from the back side of the loom, of the first few patterns threaded through the heddles. Threading the heddles was not as tedious as threading the reed. I should mention that the instructions I'm following call for the use of a reed hook and heddle hook for these 2 processes. I used neither, don't even know what they are. Eyes and hands seem to work fine in a pinch. 

Here is a pic of half the heddles threaded, and Max, who likes to be in the middle of everything.

This is a back view of the heddles fully threaded. At the end I counted out 9 threads for a 'balance', which was shaft 4, 3, 2, 3, 4, and the selvedge at the other end (1, 2, 3, 4). I had to scrap a few threads at the very end because they didn't add up to the proper number.

Note that each heddle pattern is tied independently to the back beam of the loom.