Warping again. This will be my third warp on my new Louet David 90.
The first time I used Madelyn van der Hoogt’s front-to-back method from “Warping Your Loom” (with great success). Since the David is designed to be warped back-to-front, I tried out Jane Stafford’s method from the Louet Looms DVD with my second warp (also with great success).
This time I’m picking and choosing the bits I liked best from each and slowly developing a hybrid method that works well for me. I liked Madelyn’s method for beaming and tensioning the warp and tying on to the breast beam, so I’m combining those with Jane’s method for spreading the warp with Louet’s awesome built-in raddle.
The only part of Jane’s method that caused me some discomfort in my dodgy neck and back was sleying the reed. I’ve borrowed a Swedish technique for hanging the reed in front of the harnesses using a Texsolv heddle (outlined in “The Big Book of Weaving”). This is working much better and I think I now have a warping method that is not only easy, but puts absolutely no stress on my body. Yay!
This project (yet another set of napkins) will be my first attempt at designing and weaving from a profile draft using Summer and Winter unit weaves. I’ve never woven Summer and Winter before, so there will be a lot of firsts with this project.
