Disaster!

Everything was going so well last night ..... I had finished the threading (that was a tale in itself -- out of six and a half repeats of 74 threads, I did six perfectly. Unfortunately they were the LAST six. The first half was completely screwed up, which meant I had to rethread all 496 threads to find a home for the 28 threads I had left the first time I "finished". Want to know the pattern repeat? I can tell it to you -- I know it by heart now.) Anyways, my threads were all threaded in the proper order, my bundles were tied onto the apron rod; the only thing left was to beam the warp. No problem, I thought. I'll just wind it on and then we can watch a movie.

Hah! I couldn't even wind an inch. I thought something was broken, or my crank wasn't working. Finally I looked at my beautiful threads which were KNOTTED around the heddles.

When I wound my warp, I used two cones of yarn. I held the two yarns together and strung them back and forth around the pegs of the warping board.

Turns out I should have kept a finger between them to keep them from winding around each other.

To make things worse, I threaded two groups of two threads into each dent. So I had four threads to put into the heddles, and sometimes I took two from one group, then two from another, but sometimes I just took them one-two-three-four as I happened to grab them. That's where the worst tangles were.

You understand, I didn't figure this all out at once. It took about an hour of trying to sort things out, retying broken warps, looking at the warp chains, etc., etc., for me to realize just what was going on. Dean suggested using hair detangler on the warp and combing it, which we did. It helped but just not enough. We managed to wind about a yard on, an inch or two at a time (only 10 more yards to go), but when a huge group of threads went SNAP just after we had combed and combed and combed out all possible tangles I gave up.

I might have thrown a few things and stomped around and ranted. Or I might have cried a little. I might have done some whining about my BIRTHDAY and I just want to weave with the KIDS and why is this so HARD? I am GOOD at this kind of stuff. Or maybe all of the above. Or I might have been calm and rational and looked on it all as a Learning Experience. You decide. (Here's a hint: a calm and rational person would have taken pictures.)

I did have the sense to post to the yahoo weaving group, asking whether I should toss the whole thing or if I could reclaim it. One person suggested combing the warp. Been there, done that, not again, thanks. Laura Fry suggested tossing it, and she's probably right. But someone else suggested threading the groups of two threads as one through a single heddle. I think I might try that.

But not today. Hey, it's my birthday. Why ask for trouble?