Crossed Thread – Broken Thread

I had something very weird happen today. I had a warp on the loom for two scarves. I wove one scarf, cut it off and finished it. Then I tied on again and wove about 35 inches when I made a mistake and had to unweave about an inch. While I was unweaving I kept catching a thread about half way through the warp. I finally figured out that two threads were crossed between the heddles and the reed. However, I saw no evidence of this in the first scarf or the first 35 inches of the second scarf! In fact, I looked back on the scarf on the loom and only one “cell” had a float in it that would indicate a problem – everything before that wove correctly. So, …, did the weaving gods visit during the night and cross two threads just to make the project more interesting? Or, did the cross somehow stay back where it wasn’t obvious and just managed to work its way forward after 120 inches of weaving? Who knows.

Anyhow, I had to cut the two threads and resley them. I then had to treat them as broken threads. I don’t use the '”book” method for broken threads because it just leaves you with two sets of ends to needle weave in. I just get a new thread (or in this case two threads) long enough to finish the scarf and T-pin them in with weights on the back of the loom. Then, I just forget about the original thread unless, e.g., I had a third scarf on the loom, in which case I would reattach if for the third scarf. This way I only have one place where broken warp ends overlap instead of two.

Here’s the new set of threads (the ends of the old threads are already woven in: