THE COUNTING CROSS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina 

When I wind a bout on the warping board, I put in a counting yarn at the cross.  With this particular warp I count off 20, 20 and 12 because there are 52 ends in a bout. 

More than halfway through, I realized how silly this is.  I don’t need three groups in each bout;  I only need two.  How much more sense it would be to wind 24 in one group and 28 in the other!

Or would it?  When I warp two ends at a time, it has been my habit to wind 20 in a segment of a bout, with the last segment generally being a smaller number, say 8 or 16.  Developing habits is very important as they help reduce errors. 

So I think what I could have done was to count off 20 and then 32.  Then, the problem is that I might more easily make a mistake with 32 than with 20, if only for the reason that I am winding more ends before I stop.  But it would certainly be more efficient to have to twist the tie cross only once and then tie it.

As for tying off 52 without a counting cross.  No.  I would absolutely have to double-check each bout and that would use up the time I would have saved by getting rid of the counting cross.

A GLITCH IN WARP WINDING

As for winding the warp, I have been momentarily derailed.  I did not have enough of one of the colors.  Since I didn’t want to dye just one skein, I have been working out more dye colors and winding more skeins.  It looks like this time i might be able to dye seven skeins in one go.  They are small skeins………..

 

“The Counting Cross” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on February 1, 2010. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.