A couple posts ago, I worked out how long it was going to take me to wind this warp. It was a bit over seven hours as I recall, to wind 1400 ends. I was NOT looking forward to it. Not that winding a warp can’t be fun in a Zen sort of way, but for seven hours?!?
Then, yesterday, I saw a warping paddle for auction on eBay. (I monitor the eBay weaving section just to see what comes up.) And I remembered the section on warping with a paddle in Peggy Osterkamp‘s Winding a Warp and Using a Paddle. (This is, incidentally, the first in a set of three excellent books on how to set up and weave with your loom. I don’t know of anything more detailed and useful, and highly recommend
it for any beginners.)
Back to the paddle. This is a nifty device for winding more than one end at a time. It’s basically just what it sounds like: a paddle-shaped object with holes in it (or holes and slots if it’s that kind of paddle). You take strands of yarn, run them through the holes/slots, and presto! you can wind on multiple strands at once. The hole-and-slot paddle allows you to create the threading cross by pulling the yarn back and forth in the slots to move it up/down to form the cross.
I had never used a paddle before because I had never had multiple balls/cones of yarn to work with before (you need one ball/cone of yarn for each end you thread through the paddle). But this time, I had bought four cones of 20/2 tencel, so I had multiple cones anyway. I split one cone in half using my new electric conewinder (at last! a use for my new toy), threaded five ends through the paddle, and I was off and running.
I’m still figuring out exactly how to make the cross at the end – it’s still pretty fiddly – but this tool has already cut my warping time by a factor of 3 or 4. Now instead of 7 hours, it will likely be only about 2 hours! Is that the coolest thing since sliced bread, or what??
I agree about the paddle—absolutely wonderful. And when I dye my yarns, it is just as easy to wind the skeins onto multiple cones as it is to one. No electric cone winder here, though………..sob!
I put my paddle to the front bottom of the warping board and make my cross at the top of the warping board. When I get to the first part of the cross, I pull the threads to the left, insert my fingers and make the first part of the cross, then I pull the threads to the right, insert my fingers to make the second part of the cross. On the return trip, what you do depends on whether you have an odd or even number of threads. I figured it out by starting with only two ends and then three.
If you can figure out how to make the cross with the paddle let me know. That is one of the things in three dimensions that I have yet to figure out. As far as I understand it you make two crosses a false cross and the real cross that is the one you get to use.