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My Solution to a Tie-on-the-Warp Calamity
Although I’ve tied on warps a few times, I prefer not to. For some unknown reason, though, I decided to do it last week. My new mantra is “Never tie on a warp again.”
My new warp was 21″ wide and 7 feet long. I girded my loins and tied it on….and there were eight threads of my new warp leftover when I finished. Somehow I missed an occasional thread, not once but eight times. Sigh.
I separated the eight threads from the warp chain and wound the remaining warp onto the back beam. Returning to my warping board, I wound eight new and separate strands of warp. Luckily (?) my mistakes were paired, and I was able to wind two sets of new warp threads together onto metal washers. I then treated them as broken warp threads and threaded each through its respective heddle and reed dent.
So along with two floating selvedges, I have eight warp threads hanging off my loom’s back beam–six metal washers in all to move periodically as I weave. But it’s working!
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17 Replies
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Arrrrrrggghhh so frustrating! (I’m with you re: tying on. UGH. I’d much rather thread than tie all those knots.)
At any rate, congrats on figuring out a solution! Can you explain the dowels?
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The dowels are to keep the weights from spinning and, therefore, the yarn from unplying and breaking. Hearing you talk, Janet, about various methods of avoiding that problem gave me the idea.
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Thank you for posting these great pictures. I have occasionally found myself with a number of warp ends hanging off the back of the loom and this system for holding the in place (and keeping them all at the same tension?) looks like a perfect solution
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I’ve only tried to tie onto an old warp 2x and found it not worth the effort! But your solution with the dowels and the way you wound them onto the washers is clever. How did you attach or suspend the dowels from your loom?
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The dowels aren’t suspended from the loom. I wind the floating selvedges and/or replacement warp threads onto metal washers. I put a binder clip on the washer to keep the yarn from coming off or unwinding. I then run a small-diameter dowel through the metal loops on the binder clip. Assuming I have at least two threads hanging from the back of the loom (such as a floating selvedge on each side), I put the other end of the dowel through the other binder clip. The warp threads themselves support the dowel. Does that make sense? Here’s a close-up picture.
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Brilliant – I had seen something similar once and could not remember how it was set-up. I have 2 floating selvedge and 2 missed in the original warp threads hanging off the loom with film canisters weighted with quarters but they do twist a bit. BUT I have dowels, binder clips and ring weights so I’m off to the loom and try this method. Thanks.
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I’m so glad it was helpful!
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Very helpful and works like a charm. Thanks again ????
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If you insert some lease sticks behind the heddles before you start to tie on it helps separate the threads a little so that you don’t miss threads as you tie on. I forgot to do that recently and missed two threads while tying on to an existing warp. I’m a big fan of tying on!
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I tie on a lot as well because it’s what one does with a jacquard loom. I’ve tied literally thousands (2,640 to be exact) of threads for a single warp!
I too put lease sticks behind the heddles – it makes it easier to avoid missed or wrong threads in the tie-on. Here’s a pic of my setup.
In this photo, there are actually three sets of lease sticks because I’m tying on double weave. The ones at the top of the photo are lease sticks into the old warp from behind. The two sets in middle and bottom of photo are the two layers of warp that I’m tying on. It makes it super easy to “match up” the old warp to the threads that need to be tied on.
(And if you’ve ever made a mistake in warping, it’s probably not nearly as terrible as the one I made: I tied on 2,640 threads with perfect accuracy only to discover that there was a twist in the warp between beam and heddles! I still haven’t had the gumption to start tying on ALL OVER AGAIN. AARGH!!)
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While I’m not happy when anyone makes a mistake, next time I feel like crying because I just royally screwed something up and it will take forever to recover I’ll remind myself that even Tien makes mistakes and hopefully be able to fix my mistake without having a really negative attitude.
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In some of my classes, particularly the beginners, we have Mistake Brownies (which in recent years have more often taken the form of Mistake Hershey Kisses or similar). Whenever someone screws up, a cheer goes up and the treats get passed round. It takes some of the sting out of the inevitable mishaps that happen to every single one of us.
… and only rarely do people intentionally make mistakes just to get a brownie. ;)
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I love chocolate and I love brownies, but it would take an amazing brownie to make me screw up my weaving!
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Yeah, it doesn’t happen often. ;) And when it does, it’s usually something along the lines of “Alas! Alack! Woe is me! I Have Unintentionally Threaded The Last Three Ends Wrong!”
Also, it’s usually me.
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Thanks for the suggestion about inserting the lease sticks. And I’m happy some people found my solution to be helpful!
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I immediately started searching the house and the workshop for washers :) We all owe you for this one!
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