Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Tension Equals Even

Ames just asked me about keeping tension while I wind the warp back on the warp beam. Before I drop the warp to the floor, I grab hold of about 3" of warp ends on the outside edge of both sides (one group in each hand) and lean back using my body weight to regulate the amount of tension placed on the warp. I drop the outside groups, pick up the two next groups, and lean back again. I continue this until I tug on each group of warp ends. When I drop the warp to the ground, the ends are pretty even. All I have to do is gently wind the warp around the beam until there is no slack and then carefully insert a piece of paper between the warp and the beam. I will continue to add paper to protect each layer of warp as I wind back.
Here I am at the front of the loom. Now I grab 3" groups of warp starting on the left side and working my way to the right, crank the warp back 1/2 turn, return to the front of the loom, grab 3" groups of warp starting on the right side and working my way to the left.
Crank, crank, crank
Pull, pull, pull
Crank, crank crank
Pull, pull, pull

This method is great for putting on short warps (3-5 yd)
There is something very meditative about dividing and pulling sections of warp.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

gotcha--this is similar to how I put on a warp from front to back... crank, crank, crank, pull, pull, pull..I actually do like that part as well. I love when the twists and kinks start to fall out and it ends up being just a lovely even warp.

I also noticed that your paper had a grid on it... do you follow this to know how much warp remains? I always leave myself lots of extra warp, after I've made my measured project, but it would be nice to know if I have enough for a short sample or if I have enough for a whole new piece. Even though I've measured, I find that I my tie-on waste varies and sometimes, I weave as section, make corrections and then just start over without ripping out.

Bonnie said...

Actually the grid on the white paper is a leftover graph from one of my Color Horoscope Weaving workshops, although it isn't a bad idea to measure warp from the back.