Warp separators (top to bottom). Wood slats, reed blind, sushi mat, handwoven separator
With your warp all measured, you’re now ready wind it onto the back beam, thread the heddles, and tie the warp threads to the front beam. Let’s take it a step at a time.
Warp separators (top to bottom). Wood slats, reed blind, sushi mat, handwoven separator
Whether you used a warping board or the direct-peg method to measure your warp, the next step is winding it onto the back beam. This stores the warp compactly until it is ready to be woven, and makes it possible to move the loom with the weaving in progress. To prevent tangles and tension irregularities, the goal is to wind on each thread evenly at the same rate.
Warp separators. To ensure that the threads are evenly wound, they must be wound on flat, so they all travel the same length and end up the same tension at the end. If you don’t have anything between the layers as you wind on, some warp threads may fall down between other threads and follow a shorter path, causing tension differences. The solution is to add a warp separator between the layers. Corrugated cardboard is often sold as a warp separator, but it can be problematic. As it ages, some of the ridges on the back flatten and others don’t, turning your once-consistently flat cardboard into something that introduces tension problems into your warp. For a long-lived warp separator that gives great tension, master weaver Laura Fry uses reed mats. When purchasing one, make sure that the reeds are even and that the mat is as flat as possible. The warp separator should either fill your back beam entirely or extend at least 1" beyond each side of your warp. This prevents threads from falling off the ends of your warp separator. Tip: I buy reed blinds from the hardware store and cut them to be exactly the same width as my back beam.
When the majority of the warp has scrunched together in the center of the warp and threads have piled on top of threads without a separator to keep them apart, the warp becomes cigar shaped (a). This causes tension problems because the threads will be different lengths.
Another problem is caused when new weavers use their hands to turn the warp beam. When you do this, your hands may slide in toward the warp and inadvertently crowd the threads together (b). On a narrow warp, where there is plenty of room for your hands on the beam, this might not be an issue, but it’s good to get into the habit of always using the crank handle on the outside of the loom instead.
It doesn’t matter whether the first hole you thread is to the right or the left of the slot. What does matter is that, if you go to the left, you continue to thread each hole to the left of its slot, and if you go to the right, you continue to thread each hole to the right of its slot. What you want at the end is a warp that’s threaded hole–slot–hole–slot, and so on, with one thread in each hole and each slot all the way across.
Most first-time weavers start threading the holes of a rigid-heddle loom by leaning over the heddle so they can watch the hook grab the thread and pull it through. This is hard on your back. I encourage you to trust your sense of touch and find the threads by feel.
One of the most important things in weaving is getting even tension across all of your warp threads. Many things in weaving you can fudge, or get partly wrong, and still end up with a successful project. Tension is not one of them. Even tension is the one thing that can make or break a project. It’s so important that if I discover my tension is uneven when I finish warping a loom, I stop and fix the tension problems before I go any further. Experience has taught me that tension problems only get worse as a warp progresses. Having proper tension can make the difference between weaving happily or cursing at your loom. At the end of warping your loom, you should be able to close your eyes, slide your hands across the warp, and feel that each thread has the same tension.
Even experienced weavers make threading errors from time to time. Here's a rundown of the most common and how to fix them.
Skipped Holes or slots. The most common threading error on a rigid-heddle loom is to miss a hole or a slot. Before you tie on, it pays to pause for a moment and examine your threading. Are all the holes and slots filled? Are the right colors and threads in the right places? If a thread is missing near the side of your project, and you don’t mind a project that’s one or two threads narrower than you’d originally intended, you can simply move over threads to fill in the gap. Before you do that though, check that the missing threads haven’t simply fallen down behind your heddle. It’s annoying to finish moving everything over and then find the threads and have to move everything back to its original place. If the missing thread is in the middle of the warp, it may be easier to simply add in a new thread. The quick way is to measure off a new thread the length of the warp and hang it off the back of the loom the same way as you would a repair thread for a warp thread that breaks during the weaving process (see Method 2: How to Replace a Broken Warp Thread). If you have many threads to insert or simply don’t like things dangling off the back of your loom, you can fix the thread completely by measuring out a new length of thread, unwinding the warp from the back beam, and tying the new thread onto the back of the loom, then winding things back up. If you decide to take this approach, I suggest you knot the cut ends of the warp together in front of the heddle, pulling that knot and the heddle forward together. This avoids dragging the warp through the heddle and introducing small tension irregularities between the slots and the holes.
Doubled threads in holes or slots. If you determine that there are extra threads, you can dispose of them by pulling them out of the hole or slot and throwing them off the back of your loom. This works best if the project is one where the number and order of the warp threads isn’t crucial. If you are doing a color-and-weave project where a missing thread would cause a flaw in the pattern, you’ll have to move threads over in the heddle to make a space for one of the doubled threads. You’ll have to keep pulling the extra threads back as you advance the warp while weaving. As you do, watch for a loose warp thread when you get to the end of your warp. This loose thread is the "partner" of the dangler. When you notice it, trim the thread, and tie it to the back rod. The upside of this approach is that if you break a warp thread, the loose thread can stand as a replacement, ready to fill in.
Threading errors in complex weaves. Even if you check your threading before you begin to weave, you may miss a subtle threading error, especially in a complex weave structure or pattern. It’s worthwhile to look at your weaving after the first 2 or 3 inches to see if you notice any anomalies, such as doubled warp threads or gaps in the fabric or pattern. The sooner you identify a threading error, the easier it is to fix it. If you notice a threading error after the first few inches of weaving, for instance, you can often fix it without having to unweave or cut out your fabric. Simply loosen the knot with the affected thread, slide the thread out, rethread it, and then tie it back into the bundle, allowing the moved thread to float on top of the fabric.
There are two goals when you’re tying the warp onto the front rod. One is to attach the loose ends of the warp to the loom, and the other is to evenly tension all of the warp threads. The key to both is learning how to tie a surgeon’s knot, which can be tightened down snugly and won’t slip free, but that also can be easily loosened if it’s too tight. (For surgeon’s knot, see here.)
The size of the bundles you tie depends on the thickness of the threads. For most warps, I tie bundles about an inch thick. For finer threads, such as a 10/2 cotton or Tencel, I use bundles about 1⁄2 inch thick. The angle of the threads on the edges of each bundle shouldn’t be more than 45 degrees, The number of threads in each bundle doesn’t need to be exactly the same, but it should be close. Knot all the warp threads in the same way, alternating sides as you work. It can help you maintain even tension if you tighten the front brake by one click before the next one or two knots.
