A Treasure

I found this little handcarved shuttle in an antique shop in the Baltimore area. It was on a table full of treenware, and my eye clapped on it immediately. As I picked it up, my heart started beating faster. It felt warm and silky in my hand, and I knew I was taking it home no matter the cost. There was no tag, so I took it to the counter and asked the price. The clerk looked at it blankly and said "What is it?". "A shuttle," I replied. The clerk shrugged his shoulders and said, "I'll have to call the owner."

As I shifted nervously from foot to foot, the clerk said into the phone, "It's this weird wooden shoe thing." "Five dollars," he said to me. I handed him the money and he gave me a look that said "what kind of nut would pay five bucks for a weird wooden shoe thing?"



It nestles in my palm as if it was made for me. The finish is silky smooth from years of weaving. I can still see the marks from the carving tool in the inside. The carver wanted it to be beautiful as well as functional and decorated it with a diamond pattern on the top. It was obviously a well loved shuttle as the eye the yarn comes out is completely worn with grooves on both sides.



I have been production weaving for 26 years, and none of my shuttles show this kind of wear, so I imagine it may have been used for more than one generation. Because I know nothing about the origin of this shuttle, I get to imagine a whole story around it. I see a young man lovingly carving this shuttle for the young woman he is courting. She is already a talented weaver with a love for the craft, so the young man knows that a beautiful shuttle will be a path to her heart. They are married, and the young woman weaves yard after yard of cloth for her home and family. She teaches her children to weave, and they carry on weaving cloth for clothing and towels and sheets and table linens. The grandchildren learn to weave, but now cloth can be bought cheaply in stores and the loom is stored in the barn. The shuttle is still treasured, though, because they know the story about how Grandpa courted Nana by carving her a shuttle. It passes down a few more generations until one day, a niece or nephew is cleaning out their old Auntie's house for an estate sale, and see this "weird wooden shoe thing" and throw it in a box with all the other wooden spoons and potato mashers and butter paddles. It makes its way to an antique shop in a jumble of wooden ware, until another weaver finds it and can read the story in its worn finish. It has found a good home and has a place of honor and is loved again.