Warping. Even the word is a little bit intimidating. Most weavers are looking for a loom that’s easy to warp because we all want to get to the good part quickly: Weaving.
There are several ways to warp a Mirrix Loom, some of them as simple as wrapping your warp around the loom like our Easy Warp warping method or zig-zagging your warp across the loom like with our Shasta Combs. And then there’s our tried-and-true Mirrix warping method: Continuous warping. It isn’t the easiest way to warp a Mirrix Loom, but in most cases it’s the best, and we promise it’s actually pretty simple once you get the hang of it!
Continuous warping means you warp the loom so the warp wraps all the way around the loom in a way that it can be actually be moved around the loom so you can weave a piece longer than the height of your loom. The process can look a little bit confusing if you haven’t seen it done before, but basically what you do is insert a bar between the wooden clips on the back of your loom. This bar is where you tie on your warp to begin warping and where you tie off your warp when you’re finished warping or if you’ve run out of warp and need to start a new piece. It’s also what you use to rotate your warp around the loom to change the level of your weaving or move it around the loom for more weaving space on the front. Once you’ve tied your warp onto your warping bar, you wrap your warp around the loom with one little twist: Every time you reach your warping bar, you loop around the bar and go back in the direction you just came from. This secures the warping bar and allows it to do its job!
Continuous warping has several advantages:
-It allows you to weave a piece longer than the length of your loom.
-Because it increases the weaving length of your loom with useable warp, you can do things like weave multiple pieces stacked (with warp in between for finishing) to save warp.
-It gives you the option to move your fell line (where your last row is woven) on the loom so it’s at a comfortable height for working.
-It gives you an easy place to begin and end your warp.
-It allows you to warp even if you don’t have a length of warp as long as you need. (So you can start a new piece of warp partway through warping.) You can watch a video of how to do this here.
-It is much easier it is to get even warp tension with continuous warping and your warp tension can be adjusted. For this reason it also works well with unstretchy warp like linen.
Check out our Warping for Tapestry Weaving and Warping for Bead Weaving video instructions to learn more about how to warp using the continuous warping method.
Interested in learning which Mirrix Loom is the best fit for your needs? Get a personalized loom recommendation here.
