Rethreading And Resleying Your Warp
If you ever put on a warp and then want to weave that same warp in several different weave structures you may need to resley or rethread your loom. We suggest this technique with our color gamps! Resleying and rethreading are straight forward procedures and fun things to put into your weaving knowledge base.
Resleying your Reed
To resley your reed, you will first need to cut off the first project(s) that you wove. Then once that is done, you are ready to resley. If you start off with the narrowest project (i.e. a twill gamp sett at 28epi), then when you resley for a plain weave gamp (at 24 epi) you can keep the threads in the reed and just move them over slightly as you spread out the warp. If you need to go narrower, you will just have to pull the threads out of the reed, and then resley as if you were doing it for the first time.
Rethreading your Loom
If you then want to do another kind of weave structure, you will need to rethread. This takes a bit more forethought, as you must recreate your threading cross. To do this, before you cut the already woven projects off the loom, find your two treadles that make plain weave. Depress the first treadle and insert a lease stick into the shed BEHIND the harnesses (.i.e. between the harnesses and the BACK beam). This can be a bit of a balancing act, use a friend if one is handy, but we do this all the time by ourselves, so it isn’t too hard). Then depress the second treadle and insert another lease stick into this shed right next to the other lease stick, again BEHIND the harnesses. At this point, if you have recreated the threading cross, you should see a nice cross on the lease sticks. Make sure you now secure the ends of the lease sticks to prevent the warp from sliding off once you release the tension on the warp. Cut off the previously woven project(s) and make sure you tie off the warp bundles as you cut so they don’t slide to the back and ruin your hard earned threading cross. You can now pull the warp threads back through the heddles and get ready to rethread. You should have the feeling that you have been through this part of the process before, as it will now be just like when you threaded the first time.
Posted in Lunatic Fringe Yarns, New
Awesome tip!
Thank you very much for this–I just finished four napkins in a plain tabby weave, and want to weave the leftover warp in a huck pattern for a towel. The pattern I’m looking at has a 10 thread warp repeat, so if I want to go beyond a straight twill I’m going to have to take it all the way back to rethreading it. I was dreading having to pull everything back through and hadn’t thought of putting the lease sticks back in, which to this brand-new weaver seems absolutely brilliant. I appreciate how clearly you explained it, too–while I’m not looking forward to the rethreading, it’ll solve a couple of mistakes I made originally anyway. Thanks again!