Tying One On, part 1

I’ve been weaving for somewhere in the vicinity of 40 years, and you might think that I would have everything down to a science by now. But one aspect of weaving that I’ve always been looking for a better way to do is attaching and winding the warp on to the warp beam.

I’m a pretty confirmed back-to-front warper and really like having uncut loops that are keeping my warp firmly attached at the back of the loom. I’ve worked with many different variations of how to attach those loops over the years. Two of my looms have long looped cords that are affixed to the warp beam and are long enough to reach just behind the heddles when fully extended.

If you don’t have these looped cords attached to your loom you can find a way to make and attach them. Or, you can just make short looped cords that you can attach to you warp rod and space them to whatever spacing you wish -

When I am winding my warps I wind the right size bundles to fit into the spacing of those cords, and tie a firm square knot at the end of each of those bundles to held them secure. This way I only have to count up as far as the number of ends in each of those bundles and don’t need to use a counting thread.

For many years I tied an overhand knot at the very end of the warp where the tie is, made a lark’s-head at the end of the looped cord coming from the back of the loom, inserted the overhand knot in the warp through the lark’s-head, and cinched it down around the overhand knot. This was extrememly secure - nothing was ever going to cause that warp to break loose from the loom. But it also made a big bulge where the knots were, and as I wound the layers of my warp I had to pad them significantly so that the bulge wouldn’t interfere with winding my warp on in smooth layers.

I always wished there was a way that I could attach my sections of warp to the looped cords without having those big bulges. A couple years ago I mentioned this to my partner, whose mind is much more adept at these kinds of things than mine. He said ‘Well, that’s easy. Just pass a rod through the loops and you don’t need any knots at all.” Really?? That’s going to be enough to hold the warp in place??? Wow! Yes, indeed. And it’s so much easier, and there are no knots to untie at the end of the warp - you just pull out the rod and it releases all the warp bundles.

You start by pulling out the looped cord from the loom at the appropriate position and bringing the end ot the warp bundle through the loop in the cord -

Insert a metal rod through the loop at the end of the warp bundle. It doesn’t need to be a very thick rod - 3/8” is plenty thick enough. It won’t be carrying any tension so bowing isn’t an issue.

Cinch down so that the rod is firmly enclosed between the loop in the end of the warp and the loop at the end of the cord, with the tie at the end of the warp bundle right at the end.

Continue inserting the rod through successive warp bundles and looped cords until your whole warp is lined up evenly on the metal rod.

Winding on…

All wound on -

When I get towards the end of the warp and the warp bundles get close to the back of the heddles I can still get a pretty decent shed -

When you are ready, release the tension on your warp, cut your warp to separate the woven cloth from the thrums and pull out the metal rod. Voila! No knots to untie, and you have nice neat bundles of thrums that you can make tassels out of or do whatever you want with.

It’s entirely possible that some other idea will come along in the future that I might like even better, but at least for now I feel that I’ve settled on a way to attach my warps to my loom that I feel completely happy with.

Happy warping!