May 12, 2013
Opalyn:
Well, hello again. My new table loom is all set up and weaving nicely and I wanted to catch you all up on what's been happening. After cleaning and repairing my table loom, I returned to Ruthie'e Weaving Studio to learn how to plan, measure, sley, thread, and tie-on a "warp". In this post I will be describing the front to back method of warping a loom and I highly recommend a good book or personal lesson.
The first hour at Ruthie's was about deciding the pattern and colors for my own kitchen towel with the help of Jane (my weaving instructor). We decided on 24 threads per inch, using a 12 dent reed with a repeating pattern of blue and purple stripes on a white background. With the pattern keyed into the weaving (computer)program and some details revised, I printed out the threading plan and we headed over to the warping board.
Warping boards are used to measure the warp.
With nearly 400 strings to measure and keep track of a warping board comes in handy. We decided on a three yard warp length and I started measuring. First I measured 24 lengths of white then tied the blue and white together near the starting peg and continued measuring, each time I came to a color change, I would tie the two colors together near the starting peg continually keeping an eye on the "cross". The cross is where/how the strands keep from getting tangled.
The cross is put on two "lease sticks" to keep everything straight. The lease sticks and the reed are set on a stand to make it easier to thread nearly 400 slots.
I measured the reed and centered my project in the reed as I started sleying (threading the reed) from the left. I found it easy if not particularly quick to thread the reed from the top down with two thread per slot. I finished about 1/3 of the sleying but closing time was fast approaching so Jane and I talked about threading the heddles, tieing-on, and weaving before packing up for the day.
Back home, I got everything out and build a reed stand to help the sleying go smoothly. With the sleying finished, I checked that the warp threads are tied off because the next step is to put the reed into the loom. It would be really disappointing if the reed fell and all those thread came out of the reed!
Moving around to the back of the loom and starting from my left, I untied a bundle of warp threads and separated them so I could start threading the heddles. This is a four harness loom, each with about 100 heddles, and my threading pattern is 1-2-3-4 (from the front) so I started with the left-most thread in the left-most heddle on harness number 4. Next, I thread a heddle on harness three, then one on harness two and finally one heddle is threaded on harness one.
After checking my work, I tie a group of threads into a slip knot and repeat the pattern until I have worked my way through all those threads.
A note of caution: check the threads at the reed as well as at the heddles. That will reduce later "fix-it" work!
Finally the threading is complete and I can start tying on to the back beam. This is done by taking groups of threads, wrapping them around the beam, splitting the group in half and tying a square knot.
Time to get out a few paper grocery bags or shipping paper to layer between rounds of warp as it is wound onto the warp beam.
As the warp is wound onto the warp beam the lease sticks and beater (including the reed) are going to be pulled toward the harnesses. Once this happens you move to the front of the loom and pull the lease sticks back toward the breast beam.
Continue repeating the process of winding and pulling until most of the warp has been wound onto the beam then tie-on to the cloth beam.
Before you go any further, it is time to check the threads again. Open a shed by lifting one harness at a time and look for any crossed threads and correct any problems before proceeding.
I did find a few crossed threads and quickly untangled them before I finished evening out the tension and securing all the knots. Next, start weaving a header. A header is the first inch of weaving, often with a heavier material than the warp threads. The header will even out the thread spacing that was bunched up when you tied-on.
A LOT of work goes into a weaving project before you can start weaving but it is really gratifying to get the loom threaded.