Next Steps

The reed is sleyed, and the warp lashed onto the apron rod. I tensioned it and will leave it overnight before tensioning to its final state. 

When lashing on, tensioning is just a matter of tugging lightly on each loop of cord until the entire warp feels as if it's at the same tension. I usually pull the beater forward, and pat across the width of the warp with my palm behind the reed to verify the tension is even.

This warp was very difficult to get threaded and sleyed correctly. Part of the problem is that the two warp colors are quite close in both hue and value. Plus, I haven't been feeling quite up to par, and made a number of really stupid errors.

In any case, I'd like to put in a plug for Sally Breckenridge's handy-dandy tablet-based weaving software, iWeaveIt. It runs on both Apple and Android tablets or smart phones (although the small screen size makes phones less useful as weaving tools).

I found it really great for going into an already threaded warp (in which I knew there were errors) and using the threading tracker to verify the threading, all without the hassle of starting up the computer dobby system and physically lifting shafts one by one. The stylus is faster, when all I'm doing is saying to myself "red on 18; purple on 3; red on 19; purple on 4" etc.

After several tries, by golly I think it's correct; the proof of the pudding will come when I begin to weave tomorrow.