Ask Madelyn: Twisted Warp Chain

Madelyn,

When I wind a warp and tie it onto the warp beam’s apron rod, I always have the problem of it becoming twisted after I put the lease sticks in and start winding on. That is, as I wind the warp on the beam with the lease sticks in place, the chain appears twisted. The twist gets worse as I continue winding.

Is there a way to avoid this? Any suggestions are appreciated.

—Richard Schenkman

Hi Richard!

The problem is probably caused by the way you are chaining the warp from the warping board. The usual way is to do a sort of crochet process. That is, you make a loop and pull another loop through that loop, then a new loop through the second loop, and so on. If you use one hand, you are probably turning each loop in the same direction when you pull a new loop through it. I didn’t figure this out for years, but this causes the warp chain to twist a quarter turn with each loop you pull through. So, instead of pulling each loop through in the same direction, if you turn the loop in your hand in the opposite direction for each new loop, you won’t put twist in the warp chain. (You can also achieve the same result if you alternate two hands to pull successive loops, first one hand from one direction, then the other hand from the other direction.) This is described in Handwoven, in the November/December 2004 issue, p. 45.

—Madelyn