Warping a loom with shafts mostly boils down to two methods: warping front-to-back, and warping back-to-front. Most of us warp the way we learned, without knowing why. 

The main differences are in the order in which the warp is put on the loom. In the front-to-back technique, the lease is held in the hand or a lease holder, then the warp is sleyed in the reed, drawn in through the heddles, tied on to the back beam, and wound on to the back beam. Finally, the ends are tied on to the front apron beam.

In back-to front warping, these steps are somewhat reversed. The warp goes onto a pair of lease sticks, then onto a raddle, which acts as a temporary spacer. Then, the warp is wound onto the back beam. Next the heddles are threaded in the pattern, and then the reed is sleyed. Finally, the ends are tied on to the front beam.

In America, it seems that a lot of weavers learn to warp with the front-to-back method. It’s definitely the way that I learned, but it turns out that back-to-front has a lot of advantages!

Back-to-front warping has some definite advantages. It keeps a warp under a more consistent tension, meaning there’s less opportunity for yarns to tangle. This makes it great for long warps. It’s good for delicate warp yarns, such as very fine yarns or single-ply yarns. That consistent tension is really helpful for other tricky warps, like ones with very high-twist yarn that would otherwise be prone to tangling. And lastly, it’s good for warps that are densely sett, such as repp weave.

With all the advantages of back-to-front warping, it’s a wonder that anyone uses front-to-back warping! However, there are a few key places where front-to-back warping really shines. A lot of weavers, myself included, like to make “mixed warps” that are “designed in the reed.” For these warps, I find that front-to-back warping is sort of lazy way to plan a warp, and I  use it often.

The other big advantage of front-to-back warping is when your loom (or your body) simply cannot accommodate back-to-front warping. This might be because your loom is pushed against a wall, and your back beam is not accessible, or the posture that you find yourself in is more comfortable for front-to-back warping.

​Whichever mode of warping you choose, ergonomics is key! Warping is a time-consuming part of the process, and it’s important to be kind to your body while you’re doing it.

In my own weaving practice, I've found that the loom itself has a big impact on how I choose to warp it. If I find myself hunched over, or otherwise uncomfortable during warping, I'm less likely to want to warp that way! In the following video, I share five different looms and the way that I prefer to warp each one.

A skein* of yarn is made by wrapping the yarn many times around some sort of measuring device – a swift, a niddy-noddy, or even a chair.

In this state, it’s easy to tangle the yarn. So why is yarn often sold this way?

First of all, this is the best way to wash and dye yarn. If the yarn were wound into a ball, then soap, water, or dye wouldn’t be able to penetrate all the way to the center. Plus, a ball could easily unravel while it’s wet, causing additional tangles.

Second, measuring yarn in a skein is pretty simple – if you know the diameter of the skein, you’ll simply multiply that by the number of times the yarn goes around to get the total yardage.

Lastly, yarn that’s wound into a tight ball can actually stretch out over time, leading to inconsistencies in yarn quality across the ball. Keeping it in the skein until you’re ready to use it can prevent this from happening.

​Since these are all great reasons to use skeins, how can we prevent them from getting tangled?

Usually, tangles boil down to one of four problems:

1. Winding a ball without a swift or other device to keep the skein in order. 
2. Not enough ties, or the ties are improperly placed.
3. Yarn was bunched up or shifted around during wet-finishing or dyeing.
4. Yarn was improperly placed on the swift, or ties untied incorrectly.

If you don't have a swift, you can use the next-best thing: the back of a chair. Or get a patient loved one to hold out their hands and act as a swift for you. 

A bigger problem is if the skein didn't have enough ties in the first place. One or more pieces of yarn will flop over to the other side of the skein where they don't belong. You put the skein on the swift, but somehow it's tangled! It's really hard to spot the problem if you don't know what you're looking for. 

This can still happen if you have plenty of ties, but the ties are improperly spaced. The goal is to have all the ties equidistant from each other to prevent the tangles from happening. 

Tangles can happen when the yarn is floating around in water during dyeing or wet-finishing, especially if you're working in batches of multiple skeins. Wet yarn moves much more freely in water, and is easy to tangle at this point. 

If you finish your yarn with whacking, thwacking, or menacing, there are further opportunities for the yarn to tangle. Sometimes it's not really tangled, but becomes bunched up around a tie. This leads to sticky spots that feel like tangles when you're winding a ball or re-skeining the yarn. Tugging the skein to re-shape it helps with this problem.

How you handle the yarn as you begin to wind your ball matters too. Sometimes a skein of yarn goes onto the swift with a twist. This makes it harder to unspool the skein and leads to a tangled feeling. This is because the yarn is having to travel in a spiral motion, and may be snagging on some other part of the skein. 

Badly removed ties can also create the feeling of tangles. If they're dragged down so that the yarn moves out of position too much, this can create some snags that compound on themselves as you wind your ball. ​

You want to make sure that the ends of the yarn are secured in these ties - otherwise, you will spend all your time hunting for those ends later on!

​If you're washing your yarn (for example, when wet-finishing handspun) or dyeing it, how you handle your yarn when it's wet is also important. You should never pick up the skein by a single strand of yarn. Instead, pick up by the ties to make sure you're getting the whole skein at once. If the yarn is soaking wet, be sure to support the extra weight so it doesn't stretch out.

When a skein of yarn is submerged in water, the strands are going to float more freely - just like how your hair fans out when you're underwater. If you have multiple skeins in the same water container, this can easily lead to strands getting caught on each other. When this happens, don't keep pulling it up, as this will make the tangle worse. Instead, poke around to try and find what it's snagged on, release it, and then lift by the ties. 

Once you've finished with dyeing or washing, find the ties, and re-form the shape of the skein. A gentle tug will get things re-aligned. Don't pull too hard, as most yarns are more fragile when wet. 

If you plan to sell your yarn, it's considered a best practice to re-skein it after wet-finishing or dyeing. This will help get any possible tangles smoothed out, and leads to happier customers.

Before re-skeining your yarn or winding it onto a ball, be sure to place it onto a swift or other fixed object to keep it in a continuous loop. Be sure it goes on straight - any twist in the loop will create a feeling of tangles! 
​
When you untie your skein ties to wind the yarn into a ball, be sure to remove the ties gently. Pay close attention to the ends of the yarn. If you drag them through the skein, you're going to change its position and risk creating a tangle. 

Sometimes if a skein starts out feeling tangly, it's best to wind the ball from the other end. This works more often than you might expect! 

Often, gentle strumming of a skein and slightly opening out the strands in a tangly area will release a simple snag. 

If you have a single strand that jumped into the wrong side of the loop, be sure to keep it from wrapping around the shaft of your swift. It may be possible to keep going!

​But if you do end up with massive tangles, it's not the end of the world. Tangles often look worse than they really are, and there are a few things you can do to keep from making them worse. 

Most importantly, be patient and go slowly. Your skein didn't start as a knot - all you have is a bunch of strands that have gotten unruly. If you try to go too fast, and pull to tight, you'll create a knot that may be difficult to untie.

​*technically what I’m talking about is called a “hank.” But since it’s often referred to as a skein, I refer to it as such throughout this article. Because…you know, SEO and how the Internet finds things.

When I first got my Cricket Quartet, I put on a small test warp. I warped it front-to-back. I suspect this was how the loom was designed to be warped.  (More about the differences between warping front-to-back and back-to-front in a future post!)

​For my second warp, I wanted to challenge myself with two things:

1. Warping the loom back to front, and
2. Seeing how long of a warp I could fit on the loom.

If you've used a rigid heddle loom, but are new to 4-shaft weaving, one of the biggest changes will be in how you set up your loom. Most rigid heddle looms are warping using the "direct warping method" that's shown at the beginning of this video. It's quick, easy, and good for warps that are 3 yards long and under. However, once you get to a table loom, where the  heddles are separated from the reed, you need a different way to warp. 

Using a warping board to measure out your warp has two main benefits:

1. It helps you quickly and accurately measure multiple ends of yarn that are all exactly the same length.
2. It keeps these ends organized and tangle-free.

In these videos, I'm using a 14-yard warping board. Warping boards come in all sizes, from big to tiny. This post does not cover how to use a warping mill, since those are for very long warps, but the idea is very similar.

And, here are my 10 tips for using a warping  board. Be sure to watch the video for more in-depth details!

1. Plan your design
2. Make sure you have enough yarn
3. Make a guide string
4. Start warping, following the guide string
5. Make the cross to keep the warp in order
6. Keep an even tension as you go
7. Keep track of how many ends you have
8. Tie off the cross and choke ties
9. Chain the warp
10. Head to the loom!

My test warp is off my Cricket Quartet, my studio finally has great lighting, so now it's time to get weaving! 

Most weaving videos on the internet focus on the actual weaving process, and there are plenty of those coming up. Today's videos focus more on the design process. This is the process I learned when I first started weaving, and it's let me mostly design all my own projects without having to rely on printed patterns.

I do use a few books for "design recipes," though! Here are a few of my favorites for 4-shaft looms:

• Learning to Weave : Great for learning the basics, how to do the math, plus a few handy hints.
• The Handweaver's Pattern Directory : Lots of different weave structures for 4-shaft looms. Color pictures!
• A Handweaver's Pattern Book : This is a partial reprinting of "The Green Book." It has most of the patterns of the original, but not all. However, the original is out of print and sells for a lot of money! This version is easier to find and a good place to start.

​

In this first video, I walk through the math I use to make sure I have enough yarn. For this project, I'm using a 3-ply linen from Weaver House, sett at 20 ends per inch. My pattern has 268 ends, which lets me use the whole width of the Cricket Quartet.

As promised in the video, here are the free downloads:

In this second video, I walk through my process designing the warp in WeaveIt. This isn't a full tutorial of WeaveIt, but if you need one of those, Sally has created plenty of helpful tutorials on her channel. 

If you're interested in using or modifying this pattern for your own use, there are free downloads below - one is to the WIF file, and the other is a printable PDF.

Now it's time to get warping! I'll be back with tips on how to use a warping board, check out what happened when I asked an AI chatbot how to do it.