A replacement heddle

This is the last of set the photos I took when I was weaving during my Christmas holidays. When I had got my warp on the loom, and started weaving, after a few inches I thought the pattern looked odd in places. The weave structure was an advancing twill and the threading doesn't use alternate odd and even shafts, so my tabby (plain weave) treadles didn't work. I normally weave a header in plain weave and this makes it easy to spot most errors made in threading and sleying the warp.

This is the first error I spotted: I had used a heddle on the wrong shaft. The texsolv heddles do not undo - I looked really closely because if it had been possible to untie it I could have simple moved the heddle. I contemplated for a while the idea of cutting the warp off and then re-threading. I felt really depressed by that idea. It would take me ages.

Then I remembered reading somewhere, probably first in Osma Gallinger Tod's Manual of Helpful Hints for Handweavers, the solution of making a new heddle and tying it on the correct shaft. I got a couple of lengths of warp cotton and tied two overhand knots for the heddle eye, then tied it on the top shaft. Tying on the bottom shaft I didn't manage so easily. I did this from sitting under the loom and reaching across. Big mistake. I pulled a muscle in my back that stopped me weaving for a couple of days. It didn't help that I managed to tie the heddle to the wrong shaft first go, and used a knot that wasn't easy to undo. I consulted my friends in the Online Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers about this - and received the useful suggestion that on some looms you can use a paperclip around the bottom shaft. Well, my shafts are too wide for that - but the concept in this suggestion, of a loop around the bottom shaft to tie on to is a great idea. A slack loop of knotted thread would work fine - next time. Anyhow, I was rather proud of my achievement in getting this new heddle made and getting rid of the mistake without having to cut the whole warp off, so I took these commemorative pictures.

One new cotton heddle, ready for service!


And, next picture, the single cut thread is knotted to a length of (red) thread for attaching into the woven cloth. I had no problems with this, I didn't know that new heddle was there once I got weaving and the tension of the thread was as good as the rest of the warp.

A second problem: after weaving a few more inches, I had to use the cutting-off and sewing back into the cloth method again when I found I had two other threads in the wrong order.

Once again, this solution worked perfectly.