Beaming the Afghan Warp

Warp beamed on smaller second beam



Main warp being beamed on upper 1 yard beam

With my trusty chart close to hand I started beaming the main warp this morning.

My chart lays out how many sections of each colour: A will have x sections, B y, C z and so on.

I count out the cords for each section grouping them by how many needed for each colour. Then as I'm winding, I check and double check to make sure I've got the correct count for each colour.

You can see the empty sections in the main warp where the varigated wound onto the second beam will be threaded. This yarn is fairly elastic so there should not be any trouble having the colours be slightly out of alignment. I've done this successfully before with 2/8 cotton (warp twist) and there was no sign in the finished cloth that sections were slightly out of sync.

The cords for the empty sections on the main beam have been taped down in their section so that they don't tangle or in any way mess up the warp.

As I finish each pair of afghans I'll stop and cut out the varigated, tie the next colour on to the old warp and pull the new threads through pinning them to the already woven cloth (actually the header or cutting line between each afghan) and resume weaving.

While this is somewhat fiddly to set up in the long run there will be less loom waste than if I dressed the loom three times, and more efficient in terms of time - only setting up the loom once instead of three times. The amount of fiddle time tying on the new colours will be a tiny fraction of the time invested in dressing the loom 58" wide.

Currently reading Witch's Tongue by James D. Doss