Warping
Warping is the process of preparing the long threads of the fabric. This is done on a warping mill. After all the cones are wound, we follow the warp pattern to place the cones on our creel. The creel is a structure that holds up to 160 cones in position for the yarn to be pulled off onto the warping wheel.
We thread the yarn through various tensioners, the cross reed, and a short length of reed that sets the density. We prepare the warp in sections of approximately 80 threads at a time. Each section is wound onto the warping wheel to the required length. On average we work with around 1200 to 2000 warp threads.
The most remarkable thing about our warping wheel or mill is that we built it from the wheels of a derelict Massey-Harris tractor rake and a huge array of the most unlikely bits and pieces, including some from an old dishwasher. It may look eccentric, but it works a treat.
