Counting threads

[vaneramos]

Partway through arranging the warp across the raddle, I realized I hadn't made the warp wide enough, no surprise really. It was easy to make a counting error with this project because it includes threads of varying thickness. Thick ones counts as two thin. I had been estimating as I made the warp, sometimes lost count and had to guess where I was. So I over-estimated.

I had been aiming for 43", the widest the warp can be without the heddles getting in the way, a nice size for a square shawl.

So I had to settle for a narrower shawl, or make an additional loop of warp to compensate for my error. I was worried about having enough yarn left over for the weft, until I remembered the weft doesn't need as much as the warp, because the warp wastes a lot. So I opted for more warp and set about making it over the weekend.

Tonight I put the new warp on the loom and finished spreading it across the raddle. I was pleased to find I could just do it without referring to the course notes this time.

But now it is a little too wide: almost 44½" on a 45" loom! The heddles will get in the way and I'll run into tension problems along the edges. Now I have several options:

1. Reduce the width by spreading the extra threads evenly across the warp to reduce the width to 43", which will make the finished fabric denser.
2. Eliminate a few threads from one end to reduce the width to 43" without making it denser. I don't know whether I can do this easily without screwing something up.
3. Take a few heddles off the harnesses until I'm ready to start threading them, which would allow me to make a 44½" shawl. Again I face the spectre of ignorance and potential disaster.

It was 9 p.m. and I hadn't had any dinner yet—time to quit for the evening. The loom can sit until Wednesday or Thursday when I'll have more time to work on it. By then I'll know what to do.

Comments

[jwg.livejournal.com]

This is going to get a lot easier after you've done it a few times. I'd guess option 1 is a good choice - but what do I know? My weaving experience is very shallow - I made a few narrow sashes many years ago on a home-made Inkle loom.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Cool! I bet I could use the warping board as an inkle loom. This morning I was reading up on weaving history and found instructions on how to make a warp-weighted loom. I must be obsessing, because I want to try making these things, despite having a perfectly good large modern loom taking up half my living room.

My reservation about option 1 is that I don't want the fabric to be any denser than necessary, so it will drape nicely. I'm leaning toward taking a few threads off one end, partly because I used up all the purple single thread, one of the two main colours in the warp—that would give me a little to spare in case any threads break while I'm weaving.