A Knotting Day

Today is my day to tie knots.

I measured out the warp for my next set of towels. I am using that green which is second full cone from the right in this photo. I originally was going to go with the seafoam blue but decided it would be interesting to see how the pattern comes out with a bit more saturated green in the background. It's an avocado color of sorts - just a hare [hair?] greener than I am using now.

Having never tied on before, it seemed reasonable to simply tie on the new warp in front of the beater then pull the yarn through the reed and heddles and end with attaching to the front beam. I tied on one of eleven pattern repeats and thought I should go and go do some research as to what type of knot would work the best. My square knot kept turning into a granny but the overhand knot seemed to work well. We had a demo at at Guild meeting awhile ago where the weaver simply rolled her fingers somehow and the knots were made. It looked so easy and she said she could tie on a big warp in less than thirty minutes. I thought perhaps I could find out what knot that would be.

I stopped looking for knot info when much to my surprise, I came up with was this article. In a nutshell, it says it is easier to tie on behind the the heddles and not in front of the beater. It does sound counter intuitive but apparently it is so much more efficient. Ah well, this means I will probably be tieing on another warp after this one to try it out!