New Weaver

Nine-year-old Naia watched me weaving Marie's poncho and asked if she could weave a scarf for herself. I was willing, but didn't think it would amount to much; I've tried teaching her other fibery crafts and she quickly loses interest. Tuesday night I picked up some colorful yarns from the sale rack at my LYS and when Naia got out of school at noon on Wednesday, we got to work.

And I am one very proud fiber granny. The girl took to weaving like a duck to water. I demonstrated each step of the process one time - and Naia took over and did it correctly. If she made a mistake, she immediately recognized that there was a problem (that's a big step for beginners) and asked how to fix it. She decided the color placement for the yarns, threaded the heddles, wrapped the yarn over the warping peg, moved the second thread into the heddle-hole and wound on the warp. The only thing I did was tie the warp to the front beam.
Naia got the concept of changing sheds and understood where the heddle needed to be (up or down) based on which side the shuttle was on. She remembered to angle her weft thread so it wouldn't pull too tightly when she beat. In short, she did an outstanding job.
After three hours, Naia started getting tired and since she wanted to wear this scarf to school tomorrow, I finished up the last third of the weaving. At 5:30 we took it off the loom, tied knots for the fringe, gave it a quick soak in the sink and pronounced it done. One very proud and happy nine-year-old will be wearing her very own handwoven scarf to school on Thursday. I couldn't be more thrilled.