Lashing On

Someone emailed me a few days ago and asked if I ever lashed on. The answer is, yes, I do lash on sometimes.





I'm trying to get some samples of the 2/20 silk yarn that I've been dyeing woven up, and this yarn is a prime candidate for lashing.

The yarn is slippery and fine and doesn't really like to hold a knot. That makes it difficult to secure the yarn to the apron rod by tieing directly to the rod as I would, ordinarily.

The secret to successful lashing on is to use a slippery cord. Tie the warp into bouts of about 1 inch - or a little less - then secure the cord to the apron rod. I tie a loop in the end, then wrap the cord around the rod, pulling the loose end through the loop. I work from left to right but I assume you could work from right to left if you wanted. I just find working this direction feels more comfortable to me - and I'm all about comfort when ever possible!

Open the shed and alternate passing the cord through the shed in the bout, and wrapping around the apron rod.

At the end, tie several half hitches to secure the loose end. Adjust the tension on the warp, flicking the individual cords between the warp and the apron rod until the tension is equal. Sometimes just pressing down on the warp threads will be enough to equalize the tension on the cord, too. Experiment and see which works best for you.



And here is the first few inches of the scarf woven. I threaded an advancing twill and am treadling in straight twill progression. There are times when I will thread something more complex so that I can treadle something simple. Why? Because in this scarf there are 324 ends and approximately 2300 picks. I'd much rather do something complex for 300+ times and something easy for 2300 times.

You can just make out the undulations in the weave structure in the header picks, I think. Click on the photo for a close up.