28/08/2026
Workshop views
Twist or knot?
Traditionally when silk warp threads are joined (either when a warp is finished or the colour is changing) the two threads are twisted together by hand and this twist is strong enough to allow the new warp to be pulled through ready for weaving.
[Whitchurch Silk Mill have just been doing this, so you can see how it works on their account page]
But on the ribbon loom here we tie knots. This means that we can then start weaving again as soon as all of the knots are tied.
There are several reasons for doing this:
the loom has twelve separate warp beams, if we change them all at once that's several days of down time
we generally weave on a solid black warp (except when it is white as is happening here) and the warps are never exactly the same length, so we can let each one run until it is fully finished, which cuts down on wastage
when we do switch colours, we only change half of the loom (6 beams/2 ribbons)
This one is in fact a smaller selvedge beam, which is why the threads are doubled. Nice and quick to tie-in and weaving again within the hour.
