Ask Madelyn: Preferences in Threading Heddles

Oh, Madelyn,

  

Help! I am warping for the Fiesta Cloth in the March/April 2007 issue of Handwoven. Not that that is relevant. My mental blackout is this: when threading the heddles, my brain wants to slide all heddles to the right, then begin with the thread in the first dent in the left side of the reed. I want to do this b/c it seems to correspond with the threading order of the draft. Help, please.

—Judy Ostrander

Hi Judy! 

 

You can definitely do this whatever way works best for you and your loom. If the threading direction has to be a certain way on the loom, you just have to make sure you follow the draft so it ends up that way, which you can work out by starting at one side of the draft or the other, whichever works.

 

I just discovered recently that what side you like to thread from (left or right) may depend on exactly how you thread the heddles, in addition to whether or not you are right-handed. For example, I am right-handed and don't like to use a hook. So I make a loop in the yarn with my right hand and stick the loop through the heddle with my right, pulling the yarn through with my left hand. If I were using a hook, I would want the hook in my right hand, so I might want to pull the yarn through with the hook in my right hand.  I could do it this way (without the hook) with the heddles on either side of the loom, really, but it's more comfortable for me if I have all the heddles at the left. I think if I used a hook it might work most comfortably with them all on the right, but I haven't tried that to see. You can make all these choices based on what is most comfortable for you.

 

—Madelyn