A tale of two shuttles

I am busy this week working on a bamboo pinwheel scarf for a friend leaving for graduate school.  She has that wonderful Irish coloring and red hair, so this should complement her very well:

Working this pattern is really fun.  It's wound with 8 ends of one color, 8 of the other; and the weft is the same.  I'm catching the non-working weft along the right selvedge as I go, which slows things down just a little.  Using Jane, rather than a loom that is not direct tie, means I have to flip multiple levers as I go.  I keep track by using high-quality scientific tape (used to label tubes and samples) that leaves no residue and is very, very sticky. 

I have 2 small shuttles from Schacht for this project.  They look very similar, don't they:

But in reality, one has no bottom and the other does:

And one is an 1/8th of an inch wider than the other:

So the dark shuttle really flies and the light one struggles to make it through Jane's smaller shed.  The nice thing about this pattern is that there are distinct reminders to advance the shed -- every 3 pattern repeats, which equals an inch.  This helps me have even weft and keeps my shed regular.

Beyond weaving, I like everyone else here in New England am wondering when the rain will stop.  I'm thinking of building an Ark and gathering the animals two by two.  It makes for gray days:

Low tide at Wolfe's Neck State Park in Freeport, ME.

But also makes everything wonderfully green!