proper
place close to the previously woven part of the texture. This is the
heavy thwacking sound heard in hand-weaving.

On the accurate poise of the batten depends largely the evenness of the
completed woof. If the material is heavy, the batten should be swung
high, thus having a good sweep and much force in its blow. The batten
should be so poised as to swing back itself into place after each blow.

The weaver, with foot on treadle, sits on a narrow, high bench, which is
fastened from post to post of the loom. James Maxwell, the weaver-poet,
wrote under his portrait in his _Weaver's Meditations_, printed in
1756:--

"Lo! here 'twixt Heaven and Earth I swing,
And whilst the Shuttle swiftly flies,
With cheerful heart I work and sing
And envy none beneath the skies."

There are three motions in hand-weaving. First: by the action of one
foot-treadle one harness or heddle, holding every alternate warp-thread,
is depressed from the level of the entire expanse of warp-threads.

The separation of the warp-threads by this depression of one harness is
called a shed. Some elaborate patterns have six harnesses. In such a
piece there are ten different sheds, or combinations of openings of the
warp-threads. In a four-harness piece there are six different sheds.

Room is made by this shed for the shuttle, which, by the second motion,
is thrown from one side of the loom to the other by the weaver's hand,
and thus goes over every alternate thread. The revolving quill within
the shuttle lets the weft-thread play out during this side-to-side
motion of the shuttle. The shuttle must not be thrown too sharply else
it will rebound and make a slack thread in the weft. By the third motion
the batten crowds this weft-thread into place. Then the motion of the
other foot-treadle forces down the other warp-threads which pass through
the second set of harnesses, the shuttle is thrown back through this
shed, and so on.

In order to show the amount of work, the number of separate motions in a
day's work in weaving of close woollen cloth like broadcloth (which was
only about three yards), we must remember that the shuttle was thrown
over three thousand times, and the treadles pressed down and batten
swung the same number of times.

A simple but clear description of the process of weaving is given in
Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, thus Englished in 1724:--

"The piece prepare
And order every slende