Here is the warping board that my wonderful man constructed for me. The pegs are a wooden dowel cut into equal segments and glued into holes drilled in the frame. This particular warping board was built according to instructions in the book 'Loom Construction' by Hjert and Von Rosenstiel. I checked it out from the local public library. The board is one yard across, so winding the warp thread from one side to the other measures out one yard (duh). To weave something, one would usually make a plan--how long it will be, what kind of weave (how many threads per inch for the warp), what kind of finishing for the ends (tells you how much extra warp needed at each end to make the finish), and how much loom waste to tack on (depends on what kind of loom you're using). Actually, I'm not going to do any of this crap. I'm just going to pretend that I'm making the project described in the book mentioned above, and use all of their pre-determined measurements. While I might miss some of the subtle (but essential) aspects of weaving, I'll also eliminate some of the places where I could make fatal mistakes. Fatal mistakes are something of a habit of mine.
The project calls for 300 threads that are each 3.5 yards long. Starting at the peg at the bottom right I wound the warp across, back, and across (3 yards). Then over 2 pegs on top left, under 2 pegs on top right (approx. 0.5 yd)--then around that second right peg--and back over the 2 right pegs, under 2 left pegs, and back around and down to the bottom right of the warping board. The critical aspect of all this is where the warp thread crosses, right at the center of the warping board at the top. Each time the warp passes through that cross, it's counted as one warp length, so the first time I wound the warp from the bottom all the way up, and then back down to the bottom I've wound 2 warp threads. Every 20 warp threads you tie a counting thread at the cross (the first one is tied in this pic), so you can keep track of the number of threads you've tied.
The first step in taking the warp off the board is to pull it from the bottom right peg. Then pull the loop taught and cut all of the strings at the end. This pic shows the warp after this cut has been made.
The project calls for 300 threads that are each 3.5 yards long. Starting at the peg at the bottom right I wound the warp across, back, and across (3 yards). Then over 2 pegs on top left, under 2 pegs on top right (approx. 0.5 yd)--then around that second right peg--and back over the 2 right pegs, under 2 left pegs, and back around and down to the bottom right of the warping board. The critical aspect of all this is where the warp thread crosses, right at the center of the warping board at the top. Each time the warp passes through that cross, it's counted as one warp length, so the first time I wound the warp from the bottom all the way up, and then back down to the bottom I've wound 2 warp threads. Every 20 warp threads you tie a counting thread at the cross (the first one is tied in this pic), so you can keep track of the number of threads you've tied. Actually, I had some trouble keeping my brain focused long enough to count to 20, and kept losing count. Plus, one of my cats was very much interested in the warp threads, and was distracting me.
Here is a pic of the full warp, with ties. I decided to only do 200 warp threads because I kept losing count and was getting tired of winding. The exact number doesn't matter for this first project of mine anyway.
After the warp is wound, you tie some threads before you take it off the warp board.
The red arrow points to the counting thread, which is tied around every 20 threads.
The blue arrows point to where I've tied strings tied around all 200 threads.
The white arrows points to where I've tied strings around 'top' and 'bottom' strings. Note that these are tied on either side of where the warp threads cross. Therefore, they serve to keep this cross intact, and maintain the loops on either side of the cross to minimize any confusion.
The first step in taking the warp off the board is to pull it from the bottom right peg. Then pull the loop taught and cut all of the strings at the end. This pic shows the warp after this cut has been made.Then you make a loop with this loose warp end, put your hand through it and pull through some warp, put hand through next loop and pull through more warp, continue until you've looped the warp up the the top 'blue arrow' string (see above pic). Tie this string around the end of your last loop and your warp is ready for beaming.
Beaming refers to the process of getting the warp onto the loom.
The looping process is called chaining, and is very difficult to describe with words. I didn't take any pics of it, either, because my cats were driving me crazy. There are diagrams on the web, or in books, though. It sounds complicated, but is really quite simple. The purpose seems to just get the long warp into a form that is easily carried and controlled--so ones cats cannot get themselves tangled in it and destroy it.
Actually, if someone (who does not have cats) really didn't want to do this chaining, they could probably get by without it. Just hang the warp from a coat rack or something.
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