I wrote a little list to work out which project to warp up the table loom with.

Unisex Baby Blanket – got yarn, plain weave
Denim Rag rug – got warp, need to cut up more jeans, plain weave
Multicolour Leftovers Blanket – got warp, maybe use Bendy as weft, twill
Tea towels – waiting for yarn, will take ages and need to get baby blanket done

So the baby blanket won. I dug out the yarn:

Then measured the wpi and worked out the sett and reed spacing. Since baby blankets are square, I measured the width of the reed and added 50cm loom waste. I now have a terrible suspicion that when I measured the loom waste and found it was the same as the rigid heddle, I may have forgotten to allow extra for tying on the ends, so this may not end up as square as I intended. But we’ll see…

I wound a warp of 76 ends of each colour.

I’ve never cut so much warp yarn before. The Ashford instructions for warping this loom are similar to the peg system for the rigid heddle. You clamp the warping board to a table in front of the loom, then wind the yarn from it through the reed and onto a lease stick then back to the board. As with the coloured leno scarf, this is fiddly if you have a few colours, so I cut double length pieces of warp…

… and threaded them through individually, making stripes of six, twelve or eighteen ends.

The next step is to pull the lease stick through to the back and tie it on. I’ve taken to taping the yarn to the stick to keep it in place. But before doing any of this I had to untwist all the ends. This yarn has a habit of twisting on itself:

Once I’d tied the lease stick to the back 2 1/2 hours had passed, so I called it a night. The next morning I noticed how the reed was reflecting the colours of the warp:

Then I pulled the ends out of the reed and, in snatches of ten or twenty minutes through the day, started threading the heddles.

This is awkward. My back and calves soon start aching from me bending over the loom. The Ashford instructions have you lock the reed and beater into position to keep it out of the way, but I’ve found the gap is still too small so I’ve tied it to the front of the room and gaines twice as much elbow room.

In the new Weavezine there’s an article on weaving with fine yarn which shows the weaver sitting inside her floor loom in order to be at eye level to the heddles, which she says is a more comfortable position for sleying the reed. I can’t do that, and the reed is right at eye level. But then it occurred to me that I might be able to remove the reed and beater altogther when sleying. I’d certainly want to come up with a better solution if I am going to be sleying 30 ends per inch for tea towels!

Hmm, must go investigate those bolts holding the beater on…