But as the temps are finally cooling a bit, I’m *finally* getting to warp the loom, after a year or more of it sitting producing nothing! The warp is just doubled 8/4 cotton warp, for a series of t-shirt yarn weft-faced rugs.
I’m using a tip I’m sure I read about on Warped Weavers, but I cannot remember who posted it, and cannot find it again – my apologies to the original poster.
It involves using double-sided tape on a bar of some sort held across the loom, behind the harnesses, to hold the warp ends in place, for threading.
I don’t know why I never thought of this, as it works wonderfully with sectional warping! I used to have to keep jumping up to go to the back of the loom and spread out another couple sections of warp ends, so to pick them up to thread in the correct order. This made threading take twice as long, and was tiring.
I had saved several firm cardboard inner tubes from bolts of fabric, as I never throw out anything until I’m quite sure I can’t reuse it somehow. Some weren’t long enough, but one does easily straddle the 45” loom.
I couldn't find the roll of double-sided tape, so I just used a length of packing tape folded into thirds and flattened. I secured the tube’s ends to the side rails with short scrap lengths of stretchy t-shirt yarn, to keep the tube from moving.
The tube is also long enough to hold the beater’s uprights, instead of letting them lie on the floor, so I could trip over them!
I used to use a wooden chair while threading, but hubby’s bath chair works well, with a spare piece of foam as a cushion. One day I’ll make myself a proper cushion, as I also use the bath chair for spinning, as it’s the perfect height.
My floor loom is a Hammett. The beater rails unscrew easily, and the breast beam pulls right off, so a chair can get into the loom for threading the heddles. It's a good thing, as otherwise it would be a stretch to reach over the breast beam and beater to do the threading!
Onward!
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