Friday, April 1, 2011

Fixing A Threading Error

I started weaving on this Summer and Winter warp and only after messing about with the cloth advance for a while, cutting off, re-sleying and started weaving again did I realize that I'd had a brain cramp while threading and that 3 units were threaded onto the incorrect shaft.

When you have a threading error there are several different ways of fixing it.

In some cases the only way to fix a threading error is to cut off, remove the warp ends from the reed and heddle and re-thread from the error onwards.

In this instance since everything else is correct and the error is that the pattern ends are on the incorrect shaft, you can either cut the offending ends, tie in a repair heddle, thread the ends correctly and then deal with the cut ends, re-attaching them to the rest of the cloth.

OR, you can do as I do in this instance and tie a repair heddle so that the incorrect end is contained within the eye of the repair heddle and then cut out the incorrect heddle.


I begin by identifying the incorrect ends by marking them with a coloured thread.  By lifting the ends up, you can then mark the ends behind the reed like this:



Having a visual marker of where the incorrect ends are located means I don't have to go hunting for them as each one is corrected - in this case, 6 warps.


I generally have lots of 2/8 cotton around so I use a doubled length a different colour than my heddles or warp to make it easy to see what I'm doing.  Here I've looped the repair thread around the bottom of the shaft and tied a double knot at the same level as the bottom of the heddle eye and passed one side of the repair thread so that I can now tie the eye with the warp end travelling through the eye.  Like this:


New heddle eye tied with the warp thread passing through it.


Repair heddle tied on shaft three with the warp end now passing through the heddle on shaft four and three.


The incorrect heddle is then carefully cut out - top, bottom, and eye.  You can also do this if you have metal heddles but you'll need a pair of wire cutters to cut the metal.  Be careful cutting the heddle eye to release the warp end, carefully bending the eye open so you can release the warp from the metal eye without snagging the thread and damaging it.

A matter of moments and a few cents worth of heddles and voila, you're weaving again!

Currently reading A Murderous Procession by Ariana Franklin

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Thank you, thank you, thank you. For the details added to the 'big picture' solution. Seeing how to keep track is just what I need to see. I can figure out what needs to change and never have the sense to see how to keep track of HOW it can be done.
And thanks for all the advice and help I see from you in various places here on the net.

Laura Fry said...

http://www.youtube.com/user/LauraAnnFry1?feature=mhum

For those who need to this in motion, I uploaded a video clip to my You Tube channel.

cheers,
Laura

Carol said...

I either do it the same as you described, or I do something even more heretical - I'll snip the top and bottom of my wire heddle, and then move the heddle, with the thread intact, to the correct shaft. A bit of tape will keep the heddle in its new home. easy peasy! (or lazy daisy!)

Laura Fry said...

That's clever too. :)
cheers,
Laura

DebbieB said...

Ingenious. And thanks for the video!

trish said...

What a great suggestion! I'm always trying to save my heddles cause they cost money...but you are right...a few cents and the error is corrected in a moment....thanks!

Nancy Drummond said...

Thank you so much for this information. I watched the video, when I couldn't quite picture what you were doing. Now, I see it's easy as can be. I am a fairly new weaver, with a couple of mistakes in my heddle threading, but I couldn't figure out how to fix it without rethreading 400 ends.
Now, thanks to this info, my weaving life just became a whole lot simpler

Nancy
In southern Ontario

Laura Fry said...

Welcome to the warped side, Nancy. :) I quite often do things differently from most people, mainly because it is more important to me to save time than a little money. :)

cheers,
Laura