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.

The 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.

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"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