"Color Gamp Continued....."

The next 2 sections of warp were measured out and placed at the appropriate places on the loom........

I LOVE this photo of the 20 colors lined up, divided into 24 epi sections in the raddle, and ready to be wound onto the warp beam!

Originally, as is evident in this photo, I planned on bringing the warp over the cloth beam and under the bottom beam.  This was decided because my cloth beam is removable for easier heddle threading and "lifted" a little when the warp went under it and up to the trapeze beam.   I decided to "customize" my loom...........

Instead of having the warp go under the bottom beam, I added 2 screw eyes to the loom frame and slid a 4' long, 1/2" pipe through them, which the warp then went under instead.  When not needed, the pipe can be removed, leaving the screw eyes in place, as they will not interfere with my weaving in any way.

My weights, by the way, are 5 cans of dog food in a sock, which altogether, weighed approximately 5#.  I tried hanging 2 of them together to see what the tension was like on the warp section and feel I would like more weight next time I put another warp on the loom, but of course, that will depend on what the warp is, too.

It took much longer than "normal" to get the warp wound onto the warp beam this time, but I chalk that up to being my 1st time using the warping trapeze.  I "fiddled" around quite a bit, seeing what I could and couldn't do, trying to figure out what worked best.  I have a couple of things I will try next time in hopes of streamlining the process and making it more efficient......"for me".  I'm sure every person who uses a trapeze does things very similar, but each probably also finds their own little "thing" that they feel works better for them.

The warp is on the warp beam and I am ready to thread the heddles.

I began threading the right half of the warp, not thinking about just how many warp threads there were (What? I forgot one little technical, IMPORTANT thing?).  ;)  What I haven't mentioned until now was I threaded only the heddles on the front 4 shafts.  I ran out of heddles when I got about 3/4 of the way done.  I had 2 choices as far as I could tell, and before I did anything, I wrote and asked for advice from Matthew, a weaver in Boulder, CO, who has the same loom and has woven the same color gamp kit, and also from Sara, of Woolgatherer's, in Fond du Lac, WI, where I bought my loom.  Both confirmed that yes, my 2 choices were correct, and both gave me the same advice (or at least this is how I interpreted their advice).......take out all the warp threads and begin again, but this time, thread the warp ends through all 8 of the shafts of the loom instead of just the front 4.  That is what I plan to do.  This will be the 1st time I have woven anything using 8 shafts.  Truthfully, I am sort of pleased that this "issue" came up.  It forced me to make a decision which will help me use my loom more fully and possibly eliminate any anxiety I may have unconsciously had about using more than 4 shafts.   ;)

To be continued......eventually.   ;)