threading the reed

I put a lease stick on either side of the warp cross. These sticks are a little longer than the width of the loom and have a hole at either end so they can be tied together with twine. They keep the cross intact, and the main purpose of this is to keep the warp from getting tangled as it's being affixed to the loom. It's clever.

I'm putting the warp on the loom from front to back, and the first step in this process is to thread the reed. I removed the first counting thread (20 warp threads in it), pulled the warp threads taught and cut the end of the loop. Then starting from the left, I threaded all 20 of the warp threads through the reed. The warp threads alternate going over, under, over, under, etc. the second lease stick. Following this pattern, you can determine which thread is next as you sequentially thread them through the reed. Then I threaded the next 20, and the next, until they were all through the reed .

The picture to the left is a view of the back side of the loom after I was about half done with this process. I tied the warp threads to the back beam because it helped keep things organized for me, and kept the cats from pulling it all apart. What is it about string that is so fascinating to cats? 

Here is a front view of the loom after I got all of the warp threaded. The whole process took me over 2 hours. I don't think it's supposed to take that long. I started from the left side of the reed, which is the way left-handed people are supposed to do it, apparently. I'm right handed. The whole process felt awkward, and at one point I felt like I might be going insane. This isn't really an unusual feeling for me, so I can't blame warp threading for this. 

And this is a final view from the back of the loom with a fully threaded reed. I had somehow made some mistakes when winding the warp on the warping board and had to scrap the last 7 threads. These 7 threads were actually the first 7 lengths of warp that I wound on the board. I don't understand what the problem really was. All I know is that I couldn't figure out which threads were next in line to go through the reed because they were tangled around each other. Now I have 193 threads instead of 200. No love lost.