Keeping Track

Remember last week when I wrote about different tricks weavers use to keep track of where they are?

One of my weaving friends was kind enough to send these pictures of her method, which I'm using with her kind permission.

This technique looks really fun because you get to use beads! Plus, it works well for looms with an overhead beater.


In addition to showing the treadles, the direction the shuttle should be going (R ->L) and which block is being woven are included. This is the draft for a 2 block twill with a 178 pick pattern repeat.

If the sequence calls for 1-4 repeated 6 times, after each time, you can slide 1 bead over, and when 6 beads have moved it's time for the next block.


Here is a simpler treadling sequence attached with clothespins to a dowel suspended from the top of the beater bar on a Glimakra. The large clothespins hold the sequence in place, and the smaller clothespin can be attached to the sequence if the phone rings or anything else interrupts your weaving.


The dowel is suspended from the beater bar with Texsolv and arrow pegs behind the vertical parts of the beater, so when the beater swings, the dowel stays in place rather than swinging back and forth.

Closeup of the Texsolv and arrow peg holding the dowel in place

Closeup of the Texsolv attached to the beater bar

I really like how this method includes the direction of the shuttle.....plus the beads!! Seems so much nicer than my current method - which involves scrawling notes to myself on scraps of paper that sit next to my loom.

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Where was I?