About 100′ of warp woven to date, and I’m just figuring this out. See the picture:
The picture shows the tail end of a rug I just finished, woven in used blue jeans and red recycled t shirts, 2/2 broken twill (you’re looking through the warp to the rug going onto the cloth beam in the picture), 9 epi tripled.
The yellow bar is the temple, marked with blue tape (left piece) so that if/when the two halves of the temple come apart, I know exactly which hole to use to put them back together.
The pink scrap is a marker to tell me to move the temple. Weavers of wool should allow about an inch; with rag, it appears that about 12 picks serves the same purpose. Without the marker, I’m letting the fell line get far too far ahead of the temple.
Note the big * on the white twill tape, under the temple in the picture. That’s the ideal length (54″) for the golden mean (width to length = 1.6) of the width of the rugs I’m weaving on this loom. If I’m weaving to a real pattern, I’ll follow the pattern, of course. This rug was an ABABA color change, weave till done. Now I know when “done” is.
Finally, note the little black dot on the cord at the right of the picture. (The cord is tied between the breast beam and the castle, and goes through the beater at the end of the reed.) Advancing the cloth on this loom usually means getting off my stool and adjusting one or two threads on the warp beam, so I tend not to advance until I can’t fit the shuttle through the shed. This is not good for the cloth, and it’s even worse for my back. The marker is an “honesty” prompt.
When I weave too close to the heddles, I have to lean far forward, which causes back pain later in the evening, after I’m away from the loom for a while. This was the first rug woven with these guides, and I was able to weave for two hours straight without experiencing after-weave back pain.
