Wednesday, February 11, 2009

HANDSPUN SHAWL: THE DUMMY WARP

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

The warp calls for 220 ends.  The dummy warp yarn is relatively fine (10/2 pearl cotton) so I could wind all 220 ends on the board without worrying about the pegs bending under the stress.  I prefer working with smaller bouts, however, so I am winding two bouts of 110 ends each.

Dummy warp bout windingThe photo shows how short the warp is—slightly more than 1 1/2 yards.  I am winding only one end at a time; but since it is so short I start losing track of where I am because I have to count so quickly!  So, as usual, I use a counting thread. It is the blue thread visible at the top of the warping board.  I wind it around every group of 20 ends.

Also noticeable is the lack of a kind of strange X between the top two pegs at the left.  This is called a false cross and happens when I warp with a paddle. Which I do most of the time. Doesn’t happen winding one end at a time.

I could have used two cones of the cotton and wound two ends at a time.  I didn’t think it would save any real time.  What I didn’t think about until I was in the winding process, was that two ends, alternating colors, might facilitate the tying on of the handspun warp?  But there will be a cross in both warps, so two colors might just make it marginally easier to see which end I pick off next.

Related Posts:    
Warping Work Station with Coffee
More on False Crosses


"Handspun Shawl: The Dummy Warp” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on February 11, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

2 comments:

FiberGeek said...

I hope you continue to post about how you use this dummy warp for your handspun. I have a lot of handspun and would love to use it up weaving. I have heard of a dummy warp, but have never seen anyone actually do it. Anything you write about it will be most educational.

Peg in South Carolina said...

Yes, the posts will continue. I hope you find them helpful. I have only done this a couple of times so I am still finding my way......(grin!)