Warping the Louet Jane Loom

Well I tried…I really, really tried to call my new Louet loom Lavender, but with the word Jane staring me in the face every time I look at it…..I’ve caved and Jane she shall be.

This is the first warp for the loom. I had to wait to receive the extra heddles and a replacement part, so although I’ve had this loom for 4 weeks this is my first warp.

I decided to pull a short 3 yard warp for Christmas card inserts. Summer and winter trees, based on a Donna Sullivan pattern, but modified a bit to make it mine. As you can see I had just enough yarn to do the warp – cutting a bit fine, but love to use up the stash. I have another cone very similar to use as the tabby weft.

The Jane loom came with wooden apron sticks, and I just don’t find them rigid enough for me, so Michael made me some new 1/4” metal apron rods.

The lease sticks have to be tied onto the upper part of the beater initially to allow the warp to wind on. Again, I must have some weird difficulty wish because I used very sticky 2/10 Egyptian cotton. It clumps together like Velcro!

The Jane loom has Louets’ signature built in raddle and a nifty little shelf, which I really like. The raddle however, is in metric spacing so a bit of mathematical fiddling to convert it to imperial measurements.

Here are my warp threads spread in the raddle.

I tied a string around the raddle to keep the threads all nicely in place before winding it onto the back beam, I used heavy gauge brown craft paper as a warp separator.

To allow you to reach the heddles, the beater and reed just flip over the loom to sit at the back while you work.
The Jane has another nifty doodad. It's a clear piece of plastic mounted on each side of the loom. When the beater is not being used, these little things keep it locked back out of your way, this allows another inch or two weaving space. I'm sure this will come in handy with finger manipulated weaves, when you need to have hand space to use your pick up stick etc.

Now I’m ready to thread the heddles, so I retied the lease sticks around the castle of the loom so that I could have the cross at eye level. I always count small increments of my pattern heddles and pull them out, then thread them. This is just another double check to make sure I don’t make threading mistakes.

Tying onto the front apron rod is next; Louet provided a wood stick and we replaced it with metal. I use the Jane Stafford method and do a simple knot, but go through the loop twice.

When all the bouts are tied to the rod I tighten my tension until firm, then I roll my hand over the bouts to even the tension. When the bouts seem about equal in tension I go back and pull each bout very tight and double knot. This method works extremely well for me.

I started weaving and noticed that the left side of my work was getting fuzzy. Upon closer inspection it seems that the tape on my reed was too high and was rubbing….so Exacto knife to the rescue.

Finally, I’m weaving. I used 2/16 merino wool in moss green for the pattern weft and it’s looking great. I’ll post the draft and the finished cards when I’m done.