Posted by Peg in South Carolina
MASON TWINE
This time the lashing on went without incident. Also, this time I measured out a generous 8 yards of the mason’s twine instead of 10 yards. I still had plenty extra. By the way, I forgot to mention in the last post that my use of pickup sticks to keep the rod from moving around while I lashed on was from a tip I got from Leigh. Leigh used rulers. I didn’t have rulers, so I turned to pickup sticks.
When I lash on I go through about one quarter of the warp bouts. Then I go back to the first bout and begin to retighten the bouts I have just lashed on. Then I lash on to the half-way mark and go back to the beginning to retighten, continuing the retightening process to where I have stopped. I do the same thing after I reach the 3/4 point and then again at the end. I then tie the cord to the rod on the ending side. Then I go to the front and check the evenness. This time it seemed quite even without any further fiddling with the lashing cord.
The first photo shows the warp lashed on. The warp ends were different lengths, but this will not affect the next step.
SPREADING THE WARP
The next step is to throw the initial shots that will spread the warp. Normally I use fine weft yarn to do this, but this time, because of the few threads per inch, I spread the warp in two stages. First, I threw two shots in pseudo plain weave (canvas weave has no genuine plain weave possibilities) with a heavy wool rug yarn. Then I threw four shots in pseudo plain weave with the wool yarn I had used for the sampling. The second photo on the left shows these initial shots.
These shots have another purpose. They show me if I have any incorrect threadings. And they show me if I have any warp threads crossed behind the reed. The threading is correct. And there are no crossed threads. When I am warping with very fine yarns at high epi’s, it is not at all unusual for me to have one or two crossed threads. This yarn is much easier to work with.
ALLOWING FOR FRINGE
I’m still not ready to start weaving because I want a fringe. A 10” fringe. This is kind of long but intend either to braid or to twist the ends. Either process will shorten the fringe some.
POSTSCRIPT
For an excellent post on lashing on with lots of detail photos, go to this post from Leigh’s Fiber Journal.
Related Post: Lashing on to the Front of the Loom: Part One
“Lashing on to the Front of the Loom: Part Two” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on March 4, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina
4 comments:
Ah, mason's twine. I need to get some of the because my own lashing cord is getting rather worn!
Great series on this. I love reading how others lash on as I am always looking for tips. :)
Leigh, you are so thrifty! I never save my lashing cord. I would never have thought to resuse it, largely because I weave different widths and cut the excess off after the twine is tied on. The mason twine I buy comes on a structure(?) that allows you to unwind quickly and easily. It will probably last my weaving lifetime.
I sure am enjoying and learning a lot from this series of blogs. Thanks for taking the time to share with everyone.
You're welcome, bspinner. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
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