The warp is lashed onto the front rod. And the front rod is attached to the front apron rod with Texsolv loop cord. I decided to try the Texsolv for joining the 2 rods in an attempt to keep the rods an equal distance from each other. This was hard to do just with tying them with pieces of string. The Texsolv keeps the two rods perfectly spaced.
And here is a picture of the trick I borrowed from Leigh. To support the two front rods while lashing on, Leigh had put a ruler on either side of the warp. The ruler rested on the beater lip and the front beam. Onto this the rods were slipped. I couldn't quickly find any rulers, but I did have pick-up sticks, so I used one of these on each end. It worked like a charm. It was much easier for me to get even tension because I wasn't fighting the waving around of the front rods.
This picture also shows more clearly how I used the Texolv loop cord to join the two rods.
I then decided to try a tip I had learned from Sandra Rude. When I had the warp evenly tensioned, I left it overnight. The idea was to get any soft spots to declare themselves in the dark hours of the night. Perhaps also the idea was to come back to testing on a good night's sleep. I discovered that it had softened up a bit on the right hand side so I tightened up the lashing cord there.
Then I proceeded to throw shots with blue 20/2 weft. I discovered a crossed thread on the right-hand side. Strangely, it was the last warp end on the right. Instead of sleying it in the dent with its partner, I had sleyed it one dent to the left. So I cut the offending warp end and rethreaded and sleyed a temporary end in the correct spots. Hence the pin you see on the right hand side of the warp. The pin is holding that warp end in place. The pin is visible on the right side in the following photo.
Visible in the photo also is a correction I had to make to softening ends on the right side. This time I couldn't simply pull the lashing cord tighter. The knots were just too tight to loosen up easily. So I got out a bamboo double-pointed needle and stuck it through the two end loops of the lashing cord. Then, to keep it in place, I pushed the ends of the needle into the holes of the Texsolv.
The warp is looking good. I am ready to start weaving.
2 comments:
Yikes! Bloglines has not been updating your new posts! I was thinking that was a little odd, but figured it had to do with the holiday weekend. But here you've haven't missed a blogging beat, but I've been missing your posts!
So I have a little reading to catch up on. I will have to try that tip from Sandra Rude too. When it comes to even warp tension, I need all the help I can get.
Hi Peg, I'm interested in that tip about leaving the warp overnight, but I've got a problem with this lashing on technique. I find that the overhand knots in the warp tend to pull either one way or the other, so half the warp ends in each group are under more tension than the other half. Does this happen to you, if so, how do you manage it?
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