[Flashback: Weft and Warp] You're Getting What!? (Velarian)

[Nisana Curare]

Season of Summer, Day 37, 497 AV

Nisana was a little bit anxious as she descended down the stairs into the Weft and Warp. While most Symenestra her age already had some fair knowledge in weaving fabric she was just starting out. Her focus had been on learning to hunt and be agile, but she had a reason to study the more homely crafts now.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs she paused a moment, and then stepped to the side to let student pass by her. Amethyst eyes searched the round room, eagerly seeking to find Velarian amongst the various white robed figures.

To be honest he was pretty much the sole reason the young girl was there. She had little care to learn how to make fabric. It wasn't that she didn't respect those that did, it was a great work and service they provided for Kalinor and the Symenestra, but that was not her path or talent in life. In order to spend some more time with Velarian she would more than happily learn some of it.

[Velarian Zantedeschia]

It was rarely loud at the Weft and Warp. Most teachers wouldn’t have it, as they disliked the ruckus it created among their pupils. However, it was a rare day for the weaving school to be entirely silent either. There was always some noise, even when it just the song of the looms moving under skilled and not so skilled fingers. There was the chatting of students and the teacher’s lectures, the voices of parents coming to collect their children.

Today was one of the more quiet days. A couple of teachers had collected their youngest apprentices to lead them around the Rose Cavern, to show them about the Ranekissra and the Ryzowska, to harvest some cocoons and later boil them till they unravelled. And maybe catch a moth or two as pets for the most hardworking students.

At first Velarian had wanted to invite Nisana over as well, seeing it would be one of her very first lessons, but then he had decided against it. He remembered his first visits at the cavern with his aunt and her other wards. It had been a great day, but loud, too loud for the conversation the animator intended to have with his friend. For the invitation he planned to extend.

Quietly he looked over the loom before him, then he caught sight of a young girl descending the staircase. Already Alessa was about to get to her feet, when Velarian stepped forward to gesture his friend over. The woman presiding the weavers sat down once more, turning towards a girl who could not be any older than seven. Velarian had no eyes for them.

“Nisana - it is good to see you,” he smirked as the young woman walked over to him. “How have you been?”

The young man had to admit - he had not seen the aspiring harvester lately. One could have blamed his friend’s training of course, but it would have been only half the truth. The animator had been occupied and for a change neither with work, nor with studies. And to his surprise he had to say he had rather come to like it.

“I talked with Alessa by the way... she does not mind if I give you your first lesson.”

Which was not too surprising. It was common for older students to help teach the children and although Velarian was lacking the skill of the students who did not spend most their time on learning an arcane art he was still better than Nisana. And he could built on the things his aunt had tried to teach with more or less success for almost ten years by now.

Stepped back towards the loom sat up against the rooms wall, he motioned his friend closer. Two white and gold curtains separated the the device from two similar looking ones at either side. One was unused, the other was worked by a student in Velarian’s age. In their own little sector however they were alone.

[Nisana Curare]

When Nisana's amethyst eyes fell upon Velarian a delighted smile lit up her face, and she felt a small flutter in her stomach. It had been a while since she had last seen the brilliant young man, but he had been in her thoughts more frequently. As the saying went, absence made the heart grow fonder.

"Hello Velarian," Nisana's voice was soft, so as not to disturb the peace of the area, "I have been well, and hard at work. My Mother says that I am to go on my first hunt with her next season, when I am eleven," there was particular pride in her voice at her announcement, "How have you been? It has been some time."

Nisana gave a small nod in response to Velarian's explanation, and then followed him over to the loom. It was an impressive and complex looking device for one who was used to working things no more complex than a bow and arrow. Had she been alone she might have even felt a little intimidated by it, but she knew with Velarian providing her instruction it would not only be possible, but pleasant. Lightly touching the wood of the machine she softly spoke again, "Thank you for helping me to learn Velarian. Where do we start?"

[Velarian Zantedeschia]

“I have been doing fine. Many things happened, some good some bad, but mostly they were of the good natured sort.” Or even of the exceptional good kind, he added in thoughts. Suddenly he felt excited. It was hard to not ask Nisana about the invitation right away, but then - they had come here to get some work done.

He stepped at the loom’s side. “But first things first.”

One slender hand came to rest on the wooden frame, testing the closest strings. The young man seemed satisfied with the result as he turned around to his friend once more. “When starting to weave one would usually begin with preparing the loom - since it can take a long time to set a loom up properly however, I felt so free to prepare us one for our first lesson.”

Encouragingly he gestured her to step closer. “What you will want to try in any case though is testing the warp threads, especially when someone set the loom up for you. It is important the threads sit right and under a certain tension. It makes working much easier.”

Using a slender back nail, he lifted a string from the wooden frame. “See, it is not as tens as a bow’s string, but it is also far from sagging. Either extreme makes it hard to later move the shuttle among the threads.”

He reached to the side, producing a small item carved from wood. It was very smooth, a bit longer than his palm and roughly ellipse shaped. Two deep notches on either side allowed the weaver to easily reel some thread around the device. Velarian handed the tool over to the young girl.

“That’s the shuttle. The thread on it is called weft thread. It is not as hard wearing as the warp threads which are under constant tension and especially silk can easily be torn when not careful. That’s why we will use thread the headmistress set aside for training for now.” Reaching for another shuffle, he sat down before the loom.

“The basics of weaving are actually very simple. The gist is to interweave the warp thread with the weft thread to create a, hopefully a gap free, patch of fabric by moving the shuttle from left to right across the warp threads.”

Bending forward Velarian let the shuttle dance over the threads once, gesturing Nisana to take a close look. “At the first warp thread the weft comes to rest on top of the thread, at the second warp we move the shuttle under the vertical thread and on the third we are above the thread again and so on. When we are done we will do the same into the other direction.”

Again the man let the shuttle cross the frame, from left to right. “With some looms you have to guide the shuttle yourself, but on large ones like this there are usually heddles, helping you to create a shed for passing the shuttle through easily.” Reaching across the loom he guestured at a couple of strings connected with the warps at the end of the loom. “Those are the heddles. There is one heddle for each warp. And when you gently push here.... or here...,” Velarian pressed against a movable part of the frame, ”... either every even or every odd warp is risen, will the other remain in their original position. The free space formed between the two thread layers is called shed - that’s where we pass our weft thread through.”

Slowly for her to see what he is doing he wove some more rows, using the heddles. It was considerably faster than his previous two tries. “Common try. It is easy.”

oocSorry for the delay, figuring weaving out was not so easy, haha. I hope it does make sense... somewhere

[Nisana Curare]

As much as Nisana wanted to focus on Velarian, especially after having not seen him much recently, she didn't want to look like a fool when it came time for her to perform, and so she paid close attention to Velarian's instructions. As she listened it quickly came to seem that it wasn't a terribly complicated process. Perhaps tedious, and it would take practice to do it quickly without mistake. Still, she was confident she could do the basics easy enough.

At Velarian's offer for her to try Nisana stepped forward and carefully took the shuttle from his hand with a smile, "It certainly does not look too hard," there was a touch of confidence to Nisana's voice as she stepped into position and began to mimic what Velarian had been showing her.

She slipped the shuttle through the shed, going from one side to the other, and then pressed on the movable part of the frame so the heddles would shift the warp threads. She then passed the shuttle back through the shed again, going the opposite direction from last time. Though she was mimicking Velarian's demonstration well she wasn't quiet pulling the thread from the shuttle through well enough, and so by the time she was bringing the shuttle back through a third time the strands were starting to sag and look a bit unsightly.

Still confident in her ability to follow the process she turned a smile to Velarian and asked, "How am I doing so far? Good?" and then waited to hear his lovely voice tell her how well she was doing.