How tight should my tapestry warp be?
I am frequently asked this question by readers of my book, The Art of Tapestry Weaving, and by students in my online classes. The best way to really know how tight the warp should be is to feel the warps of experienced tapestry weavers. But if you aren’t able to come to an in-person workshop or retreat any time soon, the video and discussion below will help you figure out what the right warp tension is for you.
When I got my first Mirrix loom I was thrilled with how tight I could make the tension. The looms come with a little wrench that you can use to tighten the wing nuts beyond what you can do with just your hands. I use a cotton seine twine warp which is very strong and can take a huge amount of tension. So I’d tighten that Mirrix warp very very tight. It was far tighter than I can get the tension on my beefy rug loom.
A Mirrix loom with one of the tapestry examples from my book, The Art of Tapestry Weaving in progress.
I loved how stable those warps felt at that high tension but I did not love how my fingers started bleeding around the cuticles from putting my fingers through the warp. I soon learned to back off the tension. My skin is happier and the weaving is still delightful. Today on my Mirrix looms, I tighten the tension with my hands and leave the wrench in my tool chest.
Other looms have varying abilities to achieve a moderately high tension. Warping a frame or peg loom that doesn’t have tensioning will almost always result in a lower tension. You can improve your results by using a cotton seine twine warp. This warp is gives just a little bit so you can put it on tightly and it’ll give you a nice tension especially on smaller sized looms.
The problem with non-tensioned looms in this case is that when the warp gets looser due to humidity changes, you don’t have a lot of options to tighten it up. You can weave in some little sticks at the top of the loom to tighten the warp a bit but this makes your loom length even shorter. And if as you weave it gets tighter because your loom is quite short, there really is no way to make it looser and you’ll just have to struggle with a tighter warp.
How tight is just right?
A firm tension is important. It makes the weaving easier as the warps are more likely to stay put with the weft changes you’re making. But there is definitely such a thing as warp tension that is too tight. I don’t play the harp, but I’d say that if your warp sounds like a harp when you pluck it, you have too much tension on it!
The good news is that you can play with the warp tension. If you have a loom with adjustable tensioning, try loosening it a bit and see how it weaves for you. You won’t hurt the tapestry by very slight changes in tension but you will find the sweet spot for you by doing some playing with warp tension. I give you tips for doing this in today’s video.
The video below will give you a little better idea of warp tightness on various looms. I also challenge you to experiment with your loom and materials to figure out where the best warp tension is for you.
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This video discusses how tight your tapestry warp should be and how different looms and materials influence this!
Do you like a tight warp tension? I mention tapestry weavers who love a floppy tension in the video. For some people, that is the right answer. Where do you fall on the floppy to tight continuum? Let us know in the comments.
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