Wind me up!

We’ve traveled so far! There was measuring the project at the warping board, sleying the reed at the table, threading the heddles at the loom, and now, we’ll wind the whole project on! But first, I have to do a little tying!

The loom has very similar parts at the front and the back – including a rod that is lashed on to each beam. Once each yarn has been assigned to a heddle, I’ll tie the yarn to the rod at the back in bunches of about an inch or two.

Once the back is tied in place, I’ll move around to the front to get it set up. I opened up the twisted portions of the project and loosely grouped the yarn into sections. This will give me something to tug on. I’ve left the lease sticks in place to help me identify any particularly twisted spots. The goal is to catch them before they butt up against the reed. Ah, those handy lease sticks!

During the winding process, the goal is to give each section of yarn a tug, straightening each little soldier out so there are no problems! I like to go left to right the first time, and then the opposite direction next. I have found that if you yank on the chunks of yarn the same way each time, you can create discrepancies in the rate that the yarn is wound on. Sounds technical, but it means that at the end of the winding process, one side is noticeably longer than the other! And you want to avoid that as much as possible!

So little by little, I do my tug-and-wind dance! At the back of the loom, I’m slowly feeding in yard sticks to keep the yarns even. (Are you sensing a theme here? Keep the yarns as even as possible. Rinse and repeat…)

Once the project is completely wound on, it’s time to tie the front! You know, now that I think about it, weaving is really a lot of winding and tying.. and threading – oh my! (And who is now envisioning a brunette in blue gingham, a tin man and a scarecrow skipping down a brick road? Just me? I’m not surprised…)

I have no idea what this type of knot is called. If we have any knot aficionados in the crowd, feel free to chime in! I usually just refer to it as the “fancy” knot! A little tricky to learn, but very helpful when undoing everything at the end! Thank you, fancy knot!

The loom is set! We are all dressed and ready to go! You know what this means – next up, there will be weaving! Woohoo! And the crowd goes wild! Again, could just be me… Talk to you soon!