Ask Madelyn: How to Re-Sley a Mis-Sleyed Reed

Hi Madelyn, I just set up a project on a Glimåkra floor loom and realized my warp sett is wrong. I have sleyed 1/dent in a 12-dent reed and I want to sley 1/dent in an 8-dent reed. What is the easiest way to do this? —Christy

Hi Christy!

You can, of course, remove all of the threads from the 12-dent reed, replace the reed with the 8-dent reed, and redo the sleying completely. With the Glimåkra loom (and especially if the warp is very wide), this is not a totally pleasant job (reaching through to the shafts and isolating each individual thread).

For a quicker re-sleying, tie a firm cord from front beam to back beam on each side of the warp so that you can rest the reeds on the cords. Remove the 12-dent reed and place it flat on the cords so that the ends of the warp threads hang from it down toward the floor (you’ll need about 15" of warp length beyond the reed). Place the 8-dent reed flat on the cords in front of the 12-dent reed.

Then, with a reed hook, pull the first end from the dent of the 12-dent reed on one side and take it down through the first dent of the 8-dent reed (you will have calculated the new warp width to determine the right starting dent). Continue in this way until all the ends are sleyed, tying slip knots in large groups of ends as you go. Then, slide the 12-dent reed out from under all the ends, turn the 8-dent reed upright, and secure it in place between the beater bars.

This method works well for denting orders that are the same or multiples of each other, but not if you were to change a 2/dent order to 3/dent or similar. In those cases, I’d remove all the ends from the first reed and sley the second in the usual way.

—Madelyn

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