I expect most of you know that weaving is done on a machine
called a "loom," which can be either very small; say, less than
a foot wide, or very large, measuring yards wide. For example, a
woven belt (like an army belt) is made on a loom that is in the
smaller category; the product it produces is less than two
inches wide. Compare this with the looms that make carpeting,
which are exceedingly wide, or the ones that produce bedsheets.
The loom is set up in a process called "warping," which has
nothing to do with Star Trek. "Warp" is the term for the threads
that run the whole length of the fabric, longwise. [Stick with
me here, there's a reason for this.] The thread that is sent
back and forth across the warp is called the "weft." No, I don't
know why there are such odd words for it. My best guess is that
they're from some early civilization, and they just stuck around
as the language changed. Once you have your loom set up, there
are lots of different patterns of weaving that you can do that
produce different