Cutting It Close

It's been 17 days since I began weaving two panels of "Cornerstones" for a lap throw, and I just finished the second one. In fact, I rationed myself to two motifs per day when I saw how fast it was working up. I have enjoyed it so much that I will be making another one in shades of green as soon as I finish weaving the "leftover" warp still remaining on the loom (I always warp extra in order to have a sample at the very least, or another small item). But this brings me to a drawback with boat shuttles: they don't hold as much as a stick shuttle, and it's pure guesswork to know if you've wound on too much or too little to finish out a project. As it turned out, I ended the last pattern throw with about four inches to spare on the bobbin, by pure luck. Yes, I had more thread in the colour, but it would have been annoying to have to load just enough for three or four throws. I probably would have wound enough onto a stick shuttle (i.e., a known length) to finish out the project.