Tension Issues

I enjoy reading the weaving blog of Bonnie Tarses (weavingspirit.blogspot.com). One of the things she comments on is the fact that weaving is a process of making mistakes and learning from them.

This is my latest warping mistake. (My last one was not blogged--I let extra dummy warp threads wrap around the back apron bar and the bar couldn't advance more than an inch off the beam.) This time, I tucked the extra dummy warp threads under the back apron. Voila! Now they can't wrap around the beam!

Do you see the problem here? The warp threads under the back apron created a "bubble" on one side of the back beam. I saw the bubble, but thought that since the warp wound on smoothly that all would weave well. Ha! The bubble made one side of the warp longer than the other and as I wove, the tension on my fabric loosened--but only on the left, the side where the bubble was on the warp beam.



I came up with a "non-elegant" solution. I inserted pencils and other smooth objects into the fabric wrapping on the front apron. This helped take care of some of the tensioning difference across the piece.

The final fabric still has some horizontal tracking (even after washing), but it will work ok for it's intended purpose.