Learning to Love Front to Back Warping
Balerion is studying up on warping methods and all sorts of other things.
Some resources that are available in the shop:
Front to Back Warping Manual, downloadable PDF ($12)
Front to Back Warping Manual, spiral bound ($12+ shipping)
Front to Back online course ($28, includes downloadable warping manual and 13 videos)
Front to back warping is a relatively new concept in weaving, developed and predominantly used in North America. I have found references to it as far back as 1939 and my theory is that it was initially developed at the same time as the jack loom, although I do not yet have clear proof of this.
In the original 1928 edition of The Shuttle-Craft Book of American Hand-Weaving (by Mary Meigs Atwater) there is no mention of this method. By the 1951 edition of the same book, she not only mentions it, but lists all of the many reasons that she is convinced make it a “bad method”.
Centralization of weaving knowledge and techniques is very new and until recently, warping techniques were “hyper-regional”. As a New England weaver, I found that the techniques used in Vermont were different from those in New Hampshire and different from those in Western Massachusetts. Weavers train weavers, traditionally local and in person. I believe that to get an accurate history of this technique, I will need to go into the archives of different weaving guilds, which has not yet happened.
I am surprised and disappointed by the disdain for front to back warping. I started weaving in 1986 and have exclusively used front to back in my 37 years of weaving. I was a production weaver for 20 years and frequently warped the looms three times in a week with 30 yard warps. I ran Vermont Weaving Supplies for 15 years and taught hundreds of weavers this technique. In that time, I have had many weavers tell me that they hate front to back warping (students as well as more experienced weavers), and whenever I hear this, my first question is, “what do you dislike about the technique”. What I have found is that the dislike is never about “front to back” and always about some step within the process that is less than ideal.
What is Front to Back Warping?
Front to Back Warping is when a weaver threads the reed, then the heddles, and then beams the warp. It is an innovation developed in the United States less than a hundred years ago.
What Front to Back Warping is Not
Front to Back Warping is not holding your cross in your fingers. It is not uneven warp threads that become a mess so that beaming is hard. It is not letting your lease sticks (if you use them) hang in mid-air. These things may or may not happen, but it is optional.
I am obsessed with reading old weaving books, especially those that teach how to warp. In my exploration, I have found that all resources that teach Front to Back Warping either:
1-have a flaw in the method…there is something that just makes it harder than it needs to be, or…
2-do not explain the method well enough to be able to follow easily and get your loom warped with ease
I do believe that the teachers of this technique are doing the best that they can, and I do acknowledge that my method will not work for everyone. We each have things that feel better or worse in our hands, bodies, and brains, but so much time and fabric has passed since Front to Back started getting a bad reputation and I believe that it is way past time to dive into updated resources and updated attitudes.
Some resources that are available in the shop:
Front to Back Warping Manual, downloadable PDF ($12)
Front to Back Warping Manual, spiral bound ($12+ shipping)
Front to Back online course ($28, includes downloadable warping manual and 13 videos)