Slow Going Beaming the Sectional Warp

Winding the sectional warp, one section at a time.

It's been very slow going beaming the sectional warp.  I know there's a learning curve ...  

I found a few videos (Part 1; Part 2) on how to do it with a warping board (I'm using my warping mill instead) one bundle at a time.  I don't have a creel or 24 spools to wind on straight from the spools -- I have considered it, but can't justify the space the extra equipment will take up, or the expense, not being a production weaver.  It takes longer to secure the warp chain than it does to wind a 24-end warp.  It's only 3 trips up-and-down with 4 strings.  

 

This is how I secure the cross at the top.  Red marks the top and green marks the lower.  Same for the cross at the bottom.  This will be important later on when I need to insert the lease sticks at the loom. 

 

These are mostly secured with lark's head knots, because they are secure and easy to remove later. 

 

4 x 1-pound cones of 10/2 American Maid natural cotton for the warp. 

 

Normally I use a counter app on my phone to keep track of how many strings I've run in any given warp.  But my phone kept going to sleep before I ran the 12 yards down and back up to the top of the warping mill.  It took too many taps to wake it up and get back to where I could tap the app to track the strings.  I finally gave up and went with an analogue method [See photo above.].  Tried and true.  This works just fine!

The videos worked well enough for the basics, but there were a few things that didn't work so well for me.  I have a tension box (Thank goodness!).  She combed out the strings -- I found that it was easier to snap them.  I don't have the right comb for the strings I'm working with.

I broke a couple of strings in the first 2 bundles.  The first bundle, the loose and broken strings tangled miserably.   The 2nd one, I decided to put a note on it to add 2 repair strings later to hang off the back -- just like olden days.

After that, I was winding 1 bundle at a time, and then trying to wind it onto the sectional warp.  It took about 1 hour to do a single bundle in the beginning.  At this rate, it's going to take me months just to get the loom set up.  I thought this was supposed to simplify things?  

 

I developed a couple of tricks to help --  The one teacher said she doesn't crochet the warp chains, she just coils them into a bag -- That wasn't really working for me.  I started winding it around a piece of cardboard, then realized that I could use the rag shuttles with this loom, so I've been running the individual 24-end bundles on the warping mill, then pulling them off onto the rag shuttles (from the top down) where they keep nice and stable until I can wind them onto the sectional warp in bundles.

 

This is the very simple cross holder my DH made out of some of the leftover cherry.  Very helpful!

 

Here is the tension box, which works great as long as I remember to thread the strings around the pegs.

I will say that the finished bundles look so nice and neat!  So far, I have 22 bundles on the sectional warp.  Only 15more to go! 

This system should solve some problems with tension and the cigar slopping at the ends ...  I am looking forward to that!