Questions, Questions

 

beaming with a warping valet

Once again I see questions about beaming warps.  Can you get rid of the tangles?  Can the job be done 'differently'?

You can't really get 'rid' of tangles, but you can seriously reduce them.  

Can it be done 'differently'?  Yes, of course.  And then the person shares their great approach.  

And I see that they have done their best to eliminate tangles, but not in a way that is particularly 'efficient'.  And I scroll on by.  Because if they are happy, who am I to say nay?

However, if you are the type of person who wants to work more methodically, more ergonomically, more *efficiently*, you might want to drop into my studio and see if there is something that I do that you might consider implementing?

Not that I never make mistakes.  Goodness knows, I still make mistakes.  But if you like my results, you might want to take a gander at what I actually do.

I don't cover every single tweak I do, because there are times when I am doing something 'different' so I don't always do exactly the same thing.  

But I share the basic things I routinely do.

What I do NOT do is wind very wide warps all in one chain, regardless if I'm using a warping board or mill.  The widest chain I will wind is about 15" of 2/8 cotton.  If I want a warp 16" in the reed, I will wind two 8" chains.

I tie the 'arms' of the cross, not just the waist.  Tying *just* the waist makes it difficult to find the cross to insert the lease sticks.  Especially if you use a single 2/20 cotton to do so.  So I use a thicker 'waste' yarn and tie the four 'arms' of the X.  Very easy and quick to find the cross to insert the sticks.

I do not wind 1" chains.  You wind up spending a whole lot of time tying the chains and then...untying them.

I also use a thicker yarn to make the counting string - again, to make it easier to find the counting string to remove it.  I use that thicker yarn to tie a choke tie about 18" away from the tied cross.  That gives me the optimal space to manipulate the cross and get it into the reed to rough sley the warp and get the warp set up for beaming.

I do NOT tie very tight choke ties every yard.  I tie a 10 meter long warp in 2 or 3 places, but not tighttighttight but just to act as a 'gathering' tie to keep the threads under control.  And I use a warping valet with weights provided by water in bleach bottles.  I can add or subtract water to add or subtract weight/tension during beaming by measuring the water in a measuring cup, then return the bottles to their 'standard' weight when I'm finished beaming the 'non standard' warp.  And I don't chain my warps.  Not recommended if you have helping hands in the studio, but works for me.

Note where the lease sticks are.  Between the breast beam and the ceiling rod.  I move the stick through the warp, not the warp through the sticks.  So I don't anchor the sticks to the loom, which allows me to move the sticks while the warp sits still.  If the warp is a bit 'sticky', the leading lease stick (the two sticks are attached to each other) gets tipped up to create a shed.  This generally opens the yarns up and allows the sticks to move freely along the length of the warp.  Then I reset the bottles lower and roll the warp until the bottle(s) near the ceiling rod.  Rinse and repeat.

The bottles have a string with a loop near each end.  When the bottles are too close to move up more using the loop closest to the bottle, they get attached with the long end which is long enough to go up and over the ceiling rod.  Then when that doesn't work anymore, the warp gets taken off the ceiling rod and the bottles are hung off the breast beam until I've gone as far as I can go.  

Then, while the bottles are still providing weight/tension, I transfer the cross behind the reed in the beater, and move them to the back of the loom where I have lease stick holders.  

And then the warp is cut at the front of the loom and removed from the reed and beater and I'm ready to begin threading.

If you don't belong to School of Sweet Georgia or to Long Thread media, here is a short video (9+ minutes) showing me beaming a 9 meter long warp.  In less than 10 minutes.

The classes spend more time explaining the steps.  I just wanted to actually show people how long it takes me to do the job.  And I taped it continuously, which is why I made sure to leave the clock in view so that people can see for themselves that I didn't use fast forward or cut and paste out any problems.

Learn as much as you can.  Then when you encounter problems, you will have several techniques you can apply to see if tweaking your process works better than your 'standard'.

Happy weaving.  That's the goal.