Need Help with Warping?
This week, we are including the PDF link to a basic document that will help you with a multitude of warping questions. Warping Jane’s Way is a document that was a handout at a workshop that I used to teach in person, called “Honing Your Basic Weaving Skills“. It walks you through the process of making a warp, and warping your loom. We hope that the step by step instructions and photo essay will help guide you on your journey.
This document is now 10 years old but the information in it is timeless, and we thought that having this with you as you practice warping your loom, might be useful for those of you who aren’t members of the School of Weaving. After many years of experience I have settled on certain weaving tools that help make my warping and weaving experience a lot easier.
Here are a few of my favourite things (put the list to the music if you can hear it in your head 🙂
ASK JANE!
Help … I’m getting skips in my cloth!
I’m a fairly new weaver with a Leclerc Nilus 4 shaft. I wove a tea towel kit from Jane’s store using cotton boucle and it went well. Now I’m weaving tea towels from a kit using organic cotton. Every inch or two I’m getting small skips over just one extra thread. We adjusted the treadles so they rose more uniformly, then I cleaned up a few heddles that had lint in them, but the problem persists. Have you any idea what I can have done/am doing wrong?
There are several possible reasons. I would try increasing your tension a titch. If they are only on one side then you should watch how you are putting the shuttle inside the shed. You might be diving a little as you throw. Make sure your shuttle is flat (horizontal) as it goes into the shed. I would also check to see if your warp is sitting on the shuttle race or if it is riding high on it (that is assuming you have a shuttle race). On some looms you can raise or lower your beater so that the shuttle race is in the proper position. If you have a shuttle race on your beater it should be sitting right under your warp when the shed is open. The shuttle race should support the bottom of your warp which helps prevent skips. Sometimes floats can be caused by not getting a clean exchange of warp threads which is why I always leave the beater against the fell of the cloth until after I change my shed. Once I’ve changed my shed I return the beater to the castle so I can throw my next shot. By bringing the beater back at this point it can clear up anything that might be sticking.
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