Sticks And Strings

Day 87: A few days ago, a friend asked me what type of shuttle I use for weaving, and included a link to an article describing how tuberculosis was spread throughout the weaving trade by the practice of sucking the thread through the pirn (core) to start the winding process. These days, we have health and safety regulations which prohibit methods which might transfer diseases, but such was not always the case. In any event, I use stick shuttles for a variety of reasons. First of all, they're much cheaper than boat shuttles and second, you can wind a lot more thread on them. The drawbacks to them are that they have to be wound by hand and when the weaver is nearing the end of the thread, the tips have a tendency to catch in the warp threads and may result in a broken strand. That said, if I was working on a loom wider than four feet, I would invest in a couple of boat shuttles because they "sail" across the supporting threads much more easily. However, I seldom work the full width of the loom, so sticks suffice quite nicely.