Help! I Lost My Cross!

Welcome to the club—you’re not alone! Every handweaver we’ve ever met has lost the cross at some point between winding a warp and starting to weave. When it does, we all feel frustrated that we let our minds wander—or that we simply forgot an important step.

Here are a few reasons it may have happened, along with suggestions for what to do next.

How it Happened

You Forgot to Tie the Cross

This warp has a choke tie near the beginning, but the cross isn’t tied. Photos via Long Thread Media video unless noted

What could be worse than finishing the chain for a newly wound warp—only to realize that you forgot to tie the cross first? Madelyn van der Hoogt describes how to recover from this mistake.

In brief, she suggests warping front to back. Start with sleying the reed (don’t miss her neat trick for keeping ends from twisting in the reed), then thread those ends in order, and finally carefully beam the warp.

Madelyn says: “Any twisting or crossing of the threads will show up in the beaming process, so plan to be patient and take some time.”

You Lost the Cross on Transfer

A cross being transferred from one side of the reed to the other.

If you’re warping front to back, you probably inserted a pair of lease sticks in the cross immediately after winding and chaining the warp, and then you pre-sleyed the reed. You moved the reed, warp, and lease sticks to the loom, and started winding the warp onto the back beam. So far, so good.

But maybe those lease sticks were getting in the way, so you pulled them out. Or maybe you transferred one side of the cross to sit behind the reed, but not the other one. However it happened, you lost the cross!

The good news is that, while you don’t have a thread-by-thread order anymore (unless you sleyed one end per dent), the reed is keeping everything pretty well organized. If your warp is fairly smooth (such as Tencel or many cottons) and there are only two ends per dent, you can thread them in any order. You may have a little twisting in the warp but it’s not likely to give you big problems.

If your warp is sticky, or if you have more than two ends per dent, you’ll probably do better if you recover the cross. More about that below.

*And if you’re wondering, here’s the right way to transfer the cross*.

You Lost a Handheld Cross

You can hold the cross in hand as you sley or thread.

You may prefer to hold the cross in one hand rather than using lease sticks. This works just fine until you put the cross down for a moment to deal with an interruption—and a cat (or a child) gets interested in what you’ve been doing.

Depending on how far you’ve gotten, how many ends you’ve been sleying per dent, and whether your warp is smooth or sticky, you’ll probably want to recover the cross. More about that below.

If you prefer to hold the cross, we suggest searching out a weaving cross holder so you can safely put it down (out of the reach of adorable little helpers, of course).

Think This Through

First of all, don’t do anything! Leave any choke ties in place, and don’t even think about picking up the scissors. Just walk away and get a drink of water—or a good night’s sleep.

When you’re feeling fresh, take a good look at the warp. Is there a place where the ends are generally in order? If you’ve already started winding onto the back beam, put a piece of painter’s tape across the top of it to preserve the order there.

If most of the warp is already on the beam and the fiber isn’t too thin, you may be able to forget about the lost cross, and thread the warp by pulling the ends in order from the beam. Any twisting will happen among ends that are close neighbors, which probably won't give you problems while weaving.

If the warp is traveling through a raddle, make sure the ends are secure in their sections. You may be able to forget about the lost cross and thread by pulling ends from the raddle. Any twisting will happen among each narrow raddle group, which probably won’t give you problems while weaving unless your fiber is very fine.

Next Steps

If the warp isn’t generally in order, you will need to recover the cross. It takes some time and focused attention, but you can do it!

Remake the cross. Make yourself comfortable, and then work your way from one side of the warp to the other as you select one up/one down. This video shows how to do it using your fingers. If one lease stick is still in the warp, you can use a weaving sword or a knitting needle to pick up all the alternate ends along its length. In both cases, a striped warp will give you clues about which end comes next. When you have a new cross, insert lease sticks in both sides to preserve it.

Beam the warp. Take it slowly, winding only a half turn or so at a time, and yanking groups of ends across the warp as you go. When you reach snags, strum or shake groups of ends rather than combing them.

Thread from the lease sticks. Look for obviously crossed ends as you go, and fix the order if you’re able to.

Remove the lease sticks. When the warp is beamed, threaded, and sleyed, the cross has done its work. Some weavers leave lease sticks in the warp, but they make the shed smaller, and they can abrade the warp. Let them go!

Weave carefully. Keep an eye out for crossed ends behind the heddles, especially if you hit a snag when you try to advance the warp. If you can, push crossed ends back toward the warp beam and keep weaving. If a badly twisted thread is preventing you from advancing the warp, cut and unwind it from its neighbors, and put in a repair end until you can splice the original end back in.

You may lose a little warp length because of any remaining crossed ends—but if you take your time with this troublesome warp, the weaving will go just fine.