What a mess!

Several months ago I put on an almost white warp. The yarns I use are good ones that I seldom have problems with. However, I noticed that one of the yarns which is comparable to carpet warp in size and strength, was breaking, alot! So I ended up having to bring other yarns in as they broke to weave the warp off. It didn't look as bad as my picture. However, I wound yarn on a bobbin and threaded it in through the heddles and reed from the back and hung them off the back of the loom.

Now, you'd think that I'd have thrown that pesky cone away the minute I realized that it was being a problem. You would assume wrong. Somehow it got thrown in with the rest of my yarns and put back on the shelves after the project was done.

So a couple of weeks ago I needed to weave an all white warp. Of course I unknowingly used that same cone...........for the whole warp..........two threads per inch the whole way across. Yup, the minute I started weaving, threads started snapping. That's when I remembered!

So I immediately started hanging bobbins off the back with new warp threads. It's pretty simple. You wind a bunch onto a bobbin, secure it with a rubber band and just bring the end in through the heddle and reed and then pin to the fabric and throw off the old, weak thread. As I went, I would needle weave the end into the fabric before it went over the breast beam so I wouldn't need to do it later.

The problem with doing this is that every 15 inches or so you have to go to the back of the loom and move each bobbin individually back down to the floor from where it will gradually come back up to the back beam and you have to repeat!

I would weave along fine for 5 or even 10 inches but then threads would begin to pop, 3 or 4 within close succesion.

This picture doesn't show how bad it got. I think almost every thread from that cone broke before I was done. That's about 60 bobbins. Of course I'd wound on about 17 yards. I did cut off the last vest that I was going to weave. It just wasn't worth it by then. It had been suggested that I just cut the whole thing off shortly after I realized what was going on. But, no, I'm too stubborn or too Mennonite to do that! I can be very patient when I have to be.
I did get the warp woven and that cone is empty so it's gone. Yes, I wound the whole cone off in that warp.

Hopefully I will never have another cone like that. I'd like to find out how an 8/4 cotton could be so weak. I get alot of yarn from my source and this is the only time something like that has happened. Must have been a mixup in the spinning process........

The next warp I put on was a bit longer but instead of taking a week to weave, I wove it in just over 2 days. Now that's the kind of warp I like! It's still on the loom but waiting to come off and be processed!

Carol