Sunday, March 7, 2010

Folding my Warp in Half

Now, before I started all that warp painting, what was I working on?

Towels for our guest bathroom.

I was stuck after making a silly mistake.

When I finished winding one cone of yarn on my warping board, I realized I only had 1/4 of the warp ends needed. Oops!!! I'd used half of my yarn already. Not good.

I went back to check my math. I made a simple mistake. I assumed that each cone of yarn held 1 pound of yarn, when in reality each held 1/2 a pound.

I felt bad about that assumption, but after winding all of those warps for warp painting, I realized that 1 pound cones are very common.

But still, what to do about my warp?

I decided that rather than buy more yarn, I'd fold the warp in half.

Some people fold a warp in half on purpose, particularly when setting up a complicated color sequence that will be symmetrical. In that case, you'd wind the warp twice as long as needed, put a cross at both ends, and fold the warp in half when you're dressing the loom.


End with cross on left and end with counting tie on right

In my case, I didn't have a cross at both ends, but I did have a cross at one end and a counting tie every 1/2 inch at the other end. I decided that was good enough.

I marked the center of the warp with a new counting tie, then folded the warp.

I decided to dress the loom front to back. For the portion of the warp that had a cross, I used the cross. For the portion that just had the counting tie, I selected my threads out of the counting tie.


Section with cross sleyed, starting on section with counting tie


Each segment within the counting tie isn't too hard to divide up

It worked surprisingly well.


After threading and beaming on, here's the fold

Phew!! That much closer to weaving!!

Related posts:
Ordering more yarn for warp
Getting started

13 comments:

LA said...

I've read about doing that, but I haven't done it yet! Plan B really worked out for you!

Theresa said...

LOL, my answer would have been to buy more yarn. I've never folded a warp and I'm assuming you worked front to back. Good job though, smart solution!
Can hardly wait to see the towels on weaving process.

Marion B. said...

Thank you for the photos, I 've heard about it too but seeing it makes it a lot easyer to understand.
Happy weaving.

~ The Jolly Bee ~ said...

So much prep work -- argh -- and the math skills you need. I don't think I could do this, though my mother would love it if I would give it a try.

Julie said...

Way to go! I will be waiting to see those towels done!

Tina J said...

I have had to do much the same thing, only my error was that for some reason I thought that the warping mill was ONE yard around instead of FOUR! Don't even ask me why. So with a 22 yard warp instead of a 5 yard warp, with a color sequence I had few choices.
The Tuesday Weavers haven't let me forget it either! That was LA's first summer, she thought all I did was wind warps!!!!LOL!

Donatella said...

Hi, I just awarded you with a Kreative Blogger Award, and the link is
here

Annie said...

Weaving: never a dull moment!
Your story made me smile: these things happen to me all the time. Let's say it makes us (even more) creative.
When I made ikat (haven't done recently) I folded warps in half on purpose.

charlotte said...

That was a great solution! I've never done that, but now I know how to!

Life Looms Large said...

Hopefully, if any of you ever need to fold a warp, this will help you do it. (I needed more hands to really help hold the camera though. I had to leave some parts out.)

Happy weaving!
Sue

Delighted Hands said...

Great solution to an 'Oh, no!" situation!

Sharon said...

I just realized that when I'm behind in reading, I need to start with the oldest post first because of course, you're using cotton. One of the reasons I like warping FTB is that I can sley from the warp in my hand. You were wonderfully resourceful. I look forward to the towels.

Jennifer said...

How smart of you! Fortunately you also had planned on enough yardage that you could fold in half and still have enough to start!