A Whole Lot of Counting Going On! – Blog Post
Weavers are always counting. Counting warp ends as we wind our warps. Recounting those warp threads, heddles and dents as we prepare our looms for weaving. And counting as we weave, passing the shuttle from one side to another.
Years ago, when we first started stocking the color Coral in our Tubular Spectrum™ line of mercerized cotton yarns, we issued a Coral Challenge. And we wanted to make handwoven prizes for that Challenge. Those of you who have since woven the Sweetheart towels, or received a prize towel will recognize the draft! Those prize towels became our Sweetheart Towel Kit. And we wrote a blog post about how to simplify threading a fancy twill pattern that needs lots of counting. Jump in the way-back machine with us as we relive the making of those first sweet, sweet towels!
Prizes for Coral Challenge
In 2021, we were weaving the Coral Challenge First place prizes. Surprise, Surprise, we wanted them to be amazing 8-shaft handwoven towels. And a structure that would show off how fabulous the color coral can look.
Being Lunatics, we chose an advancing threading to make a prize towel with hearts. The draft is from The Best of Weaver's, Twill Thrills book. It can be found on page 52-53 and was designed by Kim Marie Bunke. Kim designed a gorgeous scarf that has the heart pattern all the way through it. We used her draft for the hearts and turned the hearts into a border on the towels.
The easy part was getting the warp wound (using 10/2 Tubular Spectrum™ coral yarn of course!) and beamed onto the loom. It is a solid color warp, so the warping was easy! We typically warp back to front: we start by getting the warp onto the back beam before threading.
Coral Challenge Towel on Loom
And Now the Threading!
The threading was the challenging part...the 8-shaft draft has a threading repeat of 86 ends. This makes threading accurately a, um, challenge. To help make this process go more smoothly, we turned back our memory clock to the lessons of past weaving teachers. One brilliant lesson in particular has helped make this counting challenge, less of a challenge.
In her classes, Peggy Osterkamp shared stories of learning to weave from Jim Ahrens, the weaving icon of AVL fame. Jim translated the carpenter’s "Measure twice, Cut once" to weaving with a technique of "Counting twice, Threading once".
Count Twice, Thread Once
This "Count twice, Thread once" method, begins by breaking a long threading sequence down to logical and workable units. For our 8-shaft Coral Challenge Heart draft, there is a border/background section with 29 threads, and a rising (29 threads) and falling (28 threads) section of the pattern.
For each section: we worked out how many heddles are used on each shaft for that section. Then, when we were ready to thread each section, we counted out the heddles, and counted out the threads and then threaded the section. If we got to the end of the section with extra threads or extra heddles, something was wrong. And we knew it immediately rather than after we’ve tied on the warp and started weaving.
On occasion, being exceptionally talented, we have managed to make 2 mistakes and come out with the number of ends and heddles matching up, but things weren't right. However, the damage is limited to one section so when you discover it as you begin to weave, you can re-thread just a section rather than having to re-thread the whole thing or tie repair heddles.
Consider the count twice, thread once technique next time you want to put on a "Challenging" warp.
Originally Published Nov 19, 2018
Sweetheart Towel Heart Closeup