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Wednesday Widget: The Wayward Warp and The Worthwhile Weight

Image of a rigid heddle loom
The start of a project on my 24″ Ashford rigid heddle loom.

It happens. I have to learn to live with it. Or so I tell myself, because in my mind, a warp is a perfectly straight and smooth affair, a balm to the chaos of one’s inner self and a counterpoint to the pandemonium of the outside world.

In reality, the warp is as fractious as a spirited toddler. It requires constant tending and careful manipulation, and especially continual learning and practice.

I wanted to weave a long piece of cloth, both as an experiment and to avoid the back-twisting exercises of warping my rigid heddle loom. The lesson I learned is that I need to pay attention to the knots in the yarn.

A final length of over 4 yards for an off-loom width of 16 inches

I didn’t this time, and the warp broke. And then my repair broke. And then that one thread ended up stretched out and causing all sorts of problems.

I realized that’s where warp weights would come in handy.

Many of the images and examples of warp weights show them used to hold supplemental warp threads. But that’s not what I needed. I needed something to pull on my cobbled-together warp thread so it would regain its beautiful tension.

And I didn’t have time to wait for a shipment to arrive, because I really, really didn’t want to interrupt my weaving.

That’s when invention happened.

What I really needed was something to hold on to the warp thread without damaging it (something smooth), and something to pull down on the thread.

A hook, weights, and something to hold it together.

Fortunately, I had all of it on hand from previous craft projects and general craftroom supplies: a couple of S-hooks, some washers, and some rubber bands.

Not so pretty, but quick, efficient, cheap, and everything was on hand.

It worked wonderfully.

The warp weights I’ve seen in my searches are very pretty. I still want them. I want a whole collection, just because. But I can wait to spend the money on them when I can cobble together an efficient system in a few minutes for about $1 and continue weaving.

When I got my first loom (a beautiful Schacht inkle loom), I decided I wanted to have suitable accessories – handcrafted if possible, preferably made of wood, things that would extend the tactile experience of hand-weaving and creating handmade cloth.

I realized very quickly that it would take time to acquire the complete outfit I had dreamed up. Then I realized it wasn’t necessarily wise – the money could be better spent on fiber than on pretty accessories.

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