How to Wind and Combine Base and Tie-Down Warps for Inlay Weaving

The base, also called the ground warp, forms the foundation cloth. The finer tie-down warp secures the decorative weft at the surface. Their different jobs explain why you need separate records for their yarns and end counts. Kromski’s Theo Moorman tutorial illustrates this distinction, although its rigid-heddle threading instructions differ from the shaft-loom preparation described here.

Think of the relationship in three parts: length, position across the width, and threading order. A correct end count alone does not establish all three. Two accurately wound chains can still be combined incorrectly if one is spread over the wrong width or its ends are selected at the wrong points in the draft.

Before winding, make a worksheet with one column for each warp. Record the yarn, number of ends, measured length, width in the reed, sett contribution and beam assignment. Add any edge exceptions from the draft. Keep this worksheet with the chains throughout dressing.

Count the ground and tie-down ends separately from the complete draft, including its edges. A two-ground-to-one-tie-down ratio occurs in published Moorman projects, but it is a project specification rather than a universal instruction. For example, Kati Reeder Meek’s project in Top Ten Placemats on Four Shafts specifies 288 ground ends and 144 tie-down ends across 12 inches: 24 ground ends plus 12 tie-down ends per inch.

For an illustrative counting exercise, suppose your chosen draft calls for 16 ground ends and 8 tie-down ends per inch across 10 inches, without additional edge ends. You would wind 160 ground ends and 80 tie-down ends. The combined sett would be 24 ends per inch. These numbers demonstrate the arithmetic; they do not establish a suitable sett for an unspecified yarn.

Calculate each warp’s length separately as well. Take-up is the extra yarn consumed as threads curve through the woven structure. Different yarn sizes, elasticity and interlacement can produce different consumption rates, as explained in Osterkamp’s discussion of differential take-up. Equal woven lengths therefore do not automatically require equal measured warp lengths.

Here is a length worksheet using entirely illustrative allowances. The 72-inch figure represents planned cloth length on the loom, with finishing shrinkage already considered separately.

Length component	Ground warp	Tie-down warp
Planned cloth length on the loom	72 in	72 in
Sampling allowance	6 in	6 in
Assumed take-up allowance	6 in	10 in
Assumed loom and attachment waste	24 in	26 in
Total measured length	108 in	114 in

Replace every allowance with your project’s instructions or sampling information. In this illustration, the tie-down warp is six inches longer. Keep that difference in the worksheet and labels; do not shorten the chain to make its loose ends match the ground warp. Because the assumed consumption differs, choose independent let-off for this example.

Prepare your warping board or mill for the ground warp’s measured length. Wind the required ends while maintaining a cross. Secure the cross and add choke ties along the chain before removing it. Schacht’s warp-chain instructions describe using contrasting ties to preserve the cross and organize the length.

Repeat the process independently for the tie-down warp, changing the measuring path if its planned length differs. Label the two chains clearly—for example, “ground: 160 ends, 108 inches” and “tie-down: 80 ends, 114 inches” for the illustrative worksheet above.

Schacht’s board-winding method produces two ends for each complete outward-and-return journey. Check how your own winding path counts ends, especially when the draft requires an odd number. An end is one longitudinal thread in the finished warp, regardless of how many turns around a peg produced it. Schacht’s winding sequence shows the counting relationship.

Keep the chains separate during transfer to the loom. Leave their cross ties in place until the crosses are supported. The aim is to retain two identifiable supplies of ordered ends that can be brought together deliberately at the loom.

Choose the beam arrangement before attaching either chain. Osterkamp distinguishes between warps that can share a beam because their tension and take-up are alike, and warps that need separate tensioning because those requirements differ. Her single- and double-beam instructions provide the following decision basis.

Project condition	Appropriate preparation
The specified yarns and structure have compatible take-up and tension	Wind separately, combine in the raddle and beam together
The two warps require different let-off	Beam each separately
Independent let-off is needed but only one beam is available	Beam the ground warp and tension the tie-down chains separately

A single-beam Moorman setup is documented in Robin Lynde’s “Mondrian in Moorman Pillows” instructions in Handwoven, May/June 2013. Its existence does not establish that every combination of ground yarn, tie-down yarn and inlay density will behave the same way.

Separately tensioning the chains during beaming and independently releasing them during weaving are different capabilities. A shared beam rotates both wound warps together. If your project needs different consumption rates, plan how to supply that difference before winding on.

For the compatible single-beam route, Lynde’s published back-to-front method is to place the ground ends in the raddle first, put the tie-down ends above them, attach each warp separately to the apron rod, and maintain separate tension on the two warps while winding. Read the project’s preparation instructions.

Spread both systems over the same intended weaving width. For the illustrative 10-inch warp, a raddle divided into one-inch spaces would receive 16 ground ends and 8 tie-down ends in each occupied space. Check the ground distribution before adding the finer ends, then check the tie-down distribution separately.

Do not try to create the final heddle sequence by twisting the chains together. Raddle placement distributes the warp across its width; the individual threading order is established later by taking ends from the appropriate cross. Keep each cross identifiable throughout.

Wind in manageable increments so you can observe both supplies. Stop when a group catches or loses tension, resolve that section, and resume. Use appropriate beam packing: Schacht’s beaming instructions describe placing dividers or heavy paper between wound layers.

With two warp beams, put each warp on its assigned beam and preserve the correct path toward the shafts. Osterkamp advises keeping the systems from interfering with one another before they reach the threading area; beam order depends partly on whether one beam obstructs access to the other. Follow the loom’s routing instructions rather than assuming that the ground warp always belongs above or below. Two-beam routing guidance explains these considerations.

With one beam and independently weighted tie-down chains, beam the ground warp first. Madelyn van der Hoogt describes securing supplementary chains for threading with choke ties, threading both systems, tying them to the front apron rod, then releasing the temporary restraint and weighting the supplementary chains. Her supplementary-warp instructions also explain repositioning the weights as weaving advances.

For this route, record any extra length needed for the tie-down warp’s attachment and hanging arrangement. Choose the chain divisions and tension through sampling; a weight used in another project is not a universal setting for fine tie-down yarn.

Support the crosses on two separate pairs of lease sticks, positioned so both are visible and accessible. Take the next end from whichever warp the draft specifies. Osterkamp’s two-warp threading guidance explicitly describes selecting ends from separate leases in this way.

Work through one complete draft repeat at a time. Check the number of ground and tie-down ends consumed before continuing. Follow shaft assignments and reed denting separately: a ratio of two ground ends to one tie-down end describes quantities, but does not by itself specify which shaft receives each end.

Allow for edge exceptions. Lynde’s pillow instructions, for example, use two ground ends and one tie-down per dent through most of the reed, with two ground ends in the final dent. That detail is why the full draft must govern your count. The published threading and sleying instructions identify the exception.

Use the following diagnostic sequence as a practical check derived from the separate-warp preparation methods above. Make observations before deciding which adjustment to make.

1. Check the counts. Confirm that both chains supplied the expected number of ends, including edge exceptions.
2. Check the paths. Trace any end that fails to move freely back through its heddle and lease sticks.
3. Check the ground sheds. Verify the draft’s foundation interlacement before adding decorative weft.
4. Check each tie-down shed. Confirm that the intended fine ends rise independently.
5. Weave a representative sample. Include both ground-only cloth and the planned inlay yarn and density.
6. Advance the warp and check again. Record whether either system becomes tighter or looser relative to the other.

On two-beam equipment, expect to adjust the two supplies individually. Jane Stafford Textiles’ guide to two beams with one friction brake explains releasing the required amount from the second beam separately and fine-tuning tension as weaving proceeds.

Keep the worksheet beside the loom until the sample behaves as intended. Once the end counts, separate lengths, shared width and draft order agree, you have completed the essential preparation: two independently wound warps combined into one controlled weaving system.

• Peggy’s Weaving Tips > Using two or more warps – part one, Peggy Osterkamp.
• Peggy’s Weaving Tips > Using two or more warps – part three, Peggy Osterkamp.
• Theo Moorman with Two Heddles, Kromski.
• Best of Handwoven: Top Ten Placemats on Four Shafts, including Kati Reeder Meek’s Moorman project.
• Handwoven May June 2013, including Robin Lynde’s “Mondrian in Moorman Pillows”; retrieved through the Manuals+ reproduction.
• Harvest Table Set, Schacht Spindle Company.
• Ask Madelyn: Supplementary Warping Without a Second Warp Beam, Madelyn van der Hoogt, Handwoven.
• How to Warp With Two Warp Beams and One Friction Brake, Jane Stafford Textiles.