Heddle

A heddle, or heald, is an integral part of a loom: each thread of the warp passes through one, and the heddle is what separates the warp threads to open a passage for the weft. A heddle is typically a length of cord or wire suspended on a shaft of the loom, with an eye at its centre through which the warp thread is strung; since there is one heddle for every warp thread, a wide or fine warp can call for close to a thousand of them, while a handwoven tea towel typically needs 300 to 400. Raising a shaft raises every heddle strung on it, and so the warp threads threaded through them, and how the warp is distributed across the heddles on different shafts is what produces different weave structures such as plain weave or twill; a rigid heddle loom instead fixes its heddles to a single shaft rather than hanging them individually.