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Dealing with cut warp ends with back to front warping
When warping back to front, the tie-on rod goes through the loop at the beginning of the warp. There will be at least two cut ends that can’t loop around. What do you do to secure the cut ends and keep the tension even on those threads? I’m going to do stripes where there will also be a few cut ends in the middle.
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6 Replies
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Janet suggests making a large loop that you put on the warping board peg where you start/end a new yarn so the rod can go through the the loop. I think this is what you are asking. I think Janet has addressed this in the toolbox section. You can also park your warp yarn and just pick it up again when you need it. Again, the toolbox section shows this in how to make stripes without cutting using a warping mill, but it also works with a warping board.
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Thanks!
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“There will be at least two cut ends that can’t loop around.” <– do you mean the first and last of the chain? This is why I always start winding from the end that doesn’t have the cross, so that there aren’t loose ends there.
When changing yarns at the end with the cross – when winding stripes, for instance – I always tie the old and new yarns together to create a continuous loop. Note that you don’t need to tie them in a 1:1 ratio. If I’m winding my first stripe two ends at a time but will be doing 3 ends at a time for the next stripe, I can tie two ends to three just fine. If I’m winding two ends together and need to change just one of them, I still cut both ends and tie to all the new ends, even though one of the “new” ends was the old end I just cut. That way all the ends are doing the same thing and I don’t have to faff about with anchoring and tensioning the end that isn’t being cut separately from the one that is.
When changing yarns at the end without the cross, I always tie both old and new yarns to the peg rather than to each other. At that end, a knot that doesn’t land directly on the peg will show up in my fringe or even the start of my hem or fabric, so it’s safer just to tie directly to the peg, and loose ends don’t matter there.
At the cross end it doesn’t matter if the knot lands directly on the peg or an inch or two away because that’s all loom waste.
If I run out of all the ends I need at the cross end of the warp, I split the winding ground and send it through the cross in two sections so that I can tie the ends together around the peg. If I’m winding a single end, I either make a big loop so that it’s easy to get onto the apron rod or – more likely – I just wind one more end that I’ll ignore when I’m threading.
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Excellent! In this project, there will be crosses at both ends so I can
cut the warp in half, since the stripe pattern is symmetrical. It sounds like I can either make a loop for the start & end or wind an extra end on each side.
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Ah ha! When you’re making a cross at both ends, you can’t avoid having an end near the cross somewhere. In that case I do make the big loop so it’s easy to get onto the back apron rod. :)
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When winding a “folded” warp, it’s usually possible to wind at least two ends at a time so that when you come to the end you can make a cross with those two ends and tie them together at the peg.
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