Before I leave on a textile tour to India next week (look for my daily travel posts) I thought I’d give you a tip about one of the most important techniques that I use and have taught my students.
To be clear, this technique is different from what most people use which is TYING ON THE NEW WARPS BEHIND THE HEDDLES!!!
You may already be tying your new warps to old warps in front of the reed. For some weavers, tying on the new warp at the back is counter-intuitive. But Jim Ahrens has said to me, “If you can talk them out of tying on in front, you will be doing them a big favor”. I urge you to try it; there are so many advantages.
This technique is described in my out of print (but soon to be out in a PDF format book) “Warping Your Loom & Tying On New Warps”. I thought I’d share this weaving tip with you now instead of waiting until it is available.
Click the link below to view the tip:
“Peggy’s Weaving Tips > Tying on new warps the new way”
What if your warp design doesn’t include a real tabby or plain weave in it?
If your structure doesn’t have a true tabby or plain weave, use the closest sheds to plain weave available–something that will allow you to see that you can keep the threads in order. What you need to do is have the threads go through the heddles as they are threaded as they are joined in order to the new threads. Just like if you were tying on in front and going through the reed.