Why I love warp spreaders.

When it comes to tablet weaving, I am a little... um... peculiar. If you've taken a workshop with me, you will know exactly what I mean - I will insist on certain things being done just so.
There's also a stack of things I will not insist on, but will strongly recommend - such as weaving with as little tension as possible, or leaving a loop when you are inserting the current weft, or warping with a cross and inserting either a cross (two sticks tied together, like the cross in loom weaving) or a warp spreader. In its simplest version, this is a stick with holes in it, through which you pull the individual tablet threads (all from one tablet through one hole). There's also the comb-style version, which can be filled easier, and without cutting up a continuous warp:

[caption id="attachment_5051" align="alignnone" width="640"] Warp spreader made from a broken piece of weaving reed - the top can come off to fill it with threads.


The warp spreader will, as its name implies, spread out your warp - so by adjusting its distance from the tablets, you can make turning the tablets easier, and fine-tune how easy it will be to keep your weaving the perfect width. That is its main function, and for that alone, it is very much worth installing one.

However... there's this secondary thing where it comes in really, really handy. Imagine, for a moment, that you are like me and occasionally have your five minutes of utter and complete loss of all motor skills, resulting in things dropping in the most spectacular way. (That, by the way, is the reason why I am using lightweight parchment shuttles for my weaving.) Or, in that case, you have a warp that was dragged around inadequately secured and in an inadequate packaging once too often (I am, generally, not kind to my warps). It might just result in something like this:



That was adequately termed "tablet salad" by someone. It's only nine tablets, but detangling something like this could be a real hassle... if not for the warp spreader. With that in place, all you need to do is go through the cords going through the spreader, one after the other, gently extract the corresponding tablet from the salad, and place it to the side to form the stack of tablets that is supposed to be there.

And then, a little while later, you can go back to weaving.



In this case, it was only nine tablets, so it was done very quickly. I once dropped my playband with 42 tablets - that took a bit longer, but still was not too bad, thanks to the cross that was in place there, too.

So... do you use warp spreaders? If not, do give it a try - it is worth it!