Part 1 of this series teaches you how to plan a path on your warping board, and how and why to create a porrey cross, along with providing some general tips about winding a warp. Part 2 covers how to wind warp stripes, some tips for keeping track of how many ends you‘ve wound, and how to take your newly wound warp off the warping board without losing control of all those ends. Part 3 covers how to prepare your loom for dressing, tips for using lease sticks and situating the warp, and how to sley the reed and thread the heddles.
In this Best Practices installment, we‘ll cover how to put an evenly tensioned warp on the loom. Why is even tension important? Because uneven warp tension leads to broken threads (among other headaches), and beaming correctly is your best opportunity to get the tension right.
When your loom is sleyed, threaded, and ready to beam, leave the warp chain wrapped around the breast beam before tying onto the back beam. If the cut ends of the warp don’t reach past the rear apron bar, ease the warp forward without unwrapping the chain from the breast beam. Leave the lease sticks in place. If you‘ve lost the cross, don’t panic. You can regain it (or something that‘s close enough) later.
Tying On to the Back Beam
Start by centering the apron bar across the width of the loom and with the apron cords going in a straight line from warp beam to bar, or from the apron to the apron bar, and ensure that the apron cords reach over the back beam. Sitting or standing at the back of the loom, grasp a group of warp ends that equals about 1 inch in the reed. The straighter the path the warp makes without splaying, the better the tension will be.
Even up the tails in the group of warp ends you are tying. Doing so has two benefits:
• It makes the most efficient use of your yarn. If you have a tail that is 2 inches longer than the rest of the ends at the back, it will be 2 inches shorter at the front, causing you to waste 2 inches of warp length.
• Evened-up warp ends don’t tangle as you beam.
Divide the bundle in half and bring the two halves over and around the apron bar. As you bring the two halves back up, tie them around the rest of the bundle with a square knot on the top. Do not pull the warp tight—your goal is uniform knots with short tails. The warp itself can be slack.
Repeat the process across the warp: Select a group of ends, even up their tails, divide the bundle in half, and tie the ends around the apron bar. When you reach an apron cord, tie on to the side that best keeps your warp traveling in a straight line from reed to apron rod.
Left: A basic square knot is used for tying onto the back beam. Right: Sometimes ends are sleyed through the wrong dents, resulting in unintentional skipped and doubled dents, as shown here.
Get Ready to Wind On
Tie up the treadles to the shafts. If you‘ve lost the cross, here‘s where you can reinsert the lease sticks. Look at the draft and determine if there is a true plain weave. If there is no true plain weave, a mock plain weave will work. Standing at the front of the loom, unwrap the warp chain from the breast beam and pull on it to put the warp under tension. Then, step on the first plain-weave treadle and insert a lease stick into the shed between the breast beam and the castle. Pull it toward you. Close that shed and open the other plain-weave shed to insert the second lease stick. Secure the sticks with cords, and you are ready to beam!
Gather heavy paper, corrugated cardboard, or warping sticks to use as warp separators. Warp separators provide an even, flat surface to wind the warp on. If you don‘t use them, some warp ends will ride on top of ends on the previous wrap and some will dig down among the threads below, resulting in uneven tension. Paper grocery sacks cut apart into flat sections work fine, although they‘ll lose their stiffness after several uses and must be replaced. Whatever material you use must be at least an inch wider than the width of your warp in the reed, but not so wide that it gets in the way of the brake.
Determine the correct direction to turn the crank on the warp beam, as turning the wrong way will prevent the brake from holding. Try turning the crank slightly in one direction with the brake engaged. If the warp beam turns, that is the way you should turn the crank to wind on. (If you have a friction brake, don’t be tempted to skip releasing the brake while beaming—turning the crank for an extended time with the brake engaged will damage the brake drum.)
Developing a Rhythm
To begin winding, grasp the warp chain at the front of the loom and give it a hard yank. This should make most of the warp ends jump into their proper places. Don‘t comb your fingers through the warp—doing that only makes tangles worse. With the yarn under tension, pull the lease sticks toward the breast beam. If you see snarls, yank the warp again. If needed, pluck or strum the warp until the snarls release.
If you have a helper, one person can hold the warp chain and put consistent light tension on it while the other person releases the brake and cranks. If you‘re warping solo, you’ll need to move back and forth between the front of the loom and the crank. You can rest the beater against the lease sticks to provide some additional tension. Crank until you start to see the warp snarling at the lease sticks, which will have shifted closer to the reed. Yank the warp chain again to release those snarls, pull the lease sticks back toward the breast beam, and continue winding.
At the back of the loom, when you see that the apron bar is about to wind onto the warp beam, insert a warp separator between the layers. As you continue winding, add more separators as needed for the length of the warp.
From the front of the loom, periodically grasp the entire warp chain and give it a hard, steady pull. This tightens up the warp within the layers on the warp beam, and helps to keep your tension even. Occasionally check that the warp is not splaying out as it travels over the back beam: it should be the same width there as it is in the reed.
Stop cranking when about 4 inches of unwound warp remains in front of the breast beam. Remove the lease sticks, and cut the loops at the end of the warp.
Tips for Good Warp Tension
- As you tie groups of warp threads onto the back beam, keep in mind that the straighter the warp travels from the reed to the warp beam, the better the tension will be.
- Use separators as you wind to keep the warp layers from bunching, tunneling into previous layers, or splaying.
- Don‘t comb your fingers through the warp chain if you come across snarls while winding—doing that only makes tangles worse. Instead, yank, pluck, or strum the warp to free up any stickiness.
MORE: For a print-friendly version of this information, check out the Best Practices eBook. You'll learn next steps as well—including fixing warping mistakes.
SUSAN BATEMAN, weaver and teacher, started Yarn Barn 50 years ago. Her hobbies include weaving, working on the farm, volleyball, and bridge.
MELISSA PARSONS has been weaving since 1988. She started working with Susan Bateman at the Yarn Barn in 1992.