Pay Attention When Warping a Loom

If you've been paying attention, you've probably noticed my recent lists of crazy things I’ve done in the name of weaving. The whole thing started when I was going to write down a few strange things I’ve done or have happened to me and ended up with a list of 27. Looking over that list, I realize that a lot of my sticky situations come from being easily distracted. In this final list of 7, 6 are entirely due to not being careful while winding, warping, and dressing my loom. The 7th is due to my tendency to get motion sickness, so I give myself a pass on that one.

Without further ado, here are 7 of my craziest weaving mishaps:

1. I wound 2 warp chains for the same project at 2 different lengths.

2. I sleyed a reed thinking it was a 10-dent reed when in fact it was a 12-dent reed. I’ve also sleyed a reed centering for a 20-inch width when it should have been centered for 30 inches. Just once, I would've like to see my error before I got to the middle of the reed.

3. I thought I was warping with 8/4 cotton, but it was in fact an unmarked cone of 8/2 cotton. Fixing this required a fairly tedious process of adding another thread of 8/2 cotton for each end of that color. Of course, I didn’t notice the problem until the loom was fully dressed.

4. I wound a warp and didn’t label it before getting distracted by another project. It is now a mystery warp of unknown fiber, draft, and intent.

Try using a different color for your cross ties to distinguish them from your cinch ties.

1. I cut my cross ties before securing my cross to the loom. One trick to avoiding this is to make your cross ties a different color than your cinch ties. (And then remember which color not to cut).

2. I wound my warp to the back before securing it to the apron rod and pulled it out of the reed. I’ve heard of people doing the same thing but going even further and pulling it out of the heddles, too. That’s a bad day.

3. I got vertigo tying up an 8-shaft floor loom. Tying up a loom is my least favorite task; looking up at all of those shafts and strings and heddles makes me woozy.

Do any of these ring a bell, or is it just me?

Weave well,

Susan

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