Part 1. RED SCARVES for Christmas-- How I weave the Scarves

Last Friday Dec 6th I had a successful sale at the Group Health Foundation Holiday Bazaar at the clinic in Bellevue. All of my colorful chenille scarves were sold along with several alpaca hats. I mainly have pastel colors left so last evening I started a new warp for 3 scarves in some bright reds and purples in rayon chenille. (Chenille: from the French for caterpillar)

PART  1 WARPING RED SCARVES

Warp is the yarn running from the front of the loom to the back. 

This is how a warp for three scarves looks wound on the warping board. All 128 threads, 7 1/2 yards each are lined up and every other thread is crossed along the top then the cross is tied so that when the warp comes off, the threads are in the same order as I put them on. This avoids tangling and preserves the color progression. This warp will be 8 inches wide on the loom. Two of the yarns will go through each space ( dent) in the reed. There will be 16 threads per inch in my 8 dent reed.

Next the warp is carefully removed from the pegs and then "chained" to again keep them in order and also shorten the length of the warp to move it to the loom.

close up of part of the warp chain:

Now the chain is moved to the loom and the cross is placed between two lease sticks ( from  Old English lesan ("to collect, pick, select, arrange, gather") which separates the threads and allows me to pick them up in order.

this time I am going to weave in the same pattern as I previously did, so instead of sleying the reed (draw warp threads through the dents of the reed or sleye- Mid English)

with 128 threads and then threading the 128 heddles I will only have to tie 128 little threads into tiny overhand knots with the previous warp.

almost half way done tying, --you can see how the crossed threads line up in order in this photo:

more to come later, time to make dinner...
go to PART 2