That is the question. There have been many times when I’m in the middle of a multiple piece project…. like towels… where I need to cut some off. I tend to wind very long warps because I hate tying up on my Glimakra Standard. I have the Baby Wolf for shorter warps and she’s SO much easier to set up, but she doesn’t weave quite like the her Swedish sister. Give and take. Pros and cons.
Anyway. When you put very long warps on, you get a spongy and sometimes too large cloth roll on the front beam as you weave. I add warping sticks once in a while as go to add firmness to the cloth roll and that gets me a little farther. There are times though when it just has to be done. I have a custom order for six towels. I really messed up my back when I dressed the loom with this project and couldn’t do anything for about three weeks. It really put me behind. Some of the towels are for Mother’s Day, so I cut them off this morning. They are washing now so that I can hem, iron and get them in the mail giving my friend time to send them out.
I weave an inch or two in plain weave, depending on how brave I’m feeling and the thread I’m using. If I’m using a slippery thread, I’d weave 2″, if it’s, say 8/2 unmercerized cotton or thicker, I’d just do an inch. Then I insert a firm dowel and then weave another inch or two of plain weave. If you click on the photos, you can see them larger. You can see here that I also wove some twill. That’s because the towels are in twill and nothing will spread out a twill project faster than plain weave. I wove the twill to draw it back in. Note the two stings on each side holding the dowel to the beater and to the front beam. These are my 3rd, 4th and 5th hands just to hold thing stable when I start cutting.
I will tie that rod to the cloth rod and continue to weave. It’s nice because there’s no knots, you don’t have to tension things out again and it wastes very little thread.
Another thing I’ll share with you are my homemade temples. The traditional kind and I do not get along. I always end up getting poked and bleeding or tearing up my selvedges. These tarp clips work great. I was all thumbs when I first started to use them, but once I got used to them I can move them up the selvages in no time flat. Much faster than the traditional ones and they do the job. I used scrap handwoven (yes, there is such a thing) and made little pouches that I filled with 2 oz of buckshot. I used texsolv to tie it all together and command strip hooks to hold them to the sides of my looms. I did the exact same with my Baby Wolf.