I read the directions that were in the magazine about 4 or 5 times.  All it said was:  “Place lease sticks in the cross and secure them to the loom …”.  But how?  I looked at the tiny photo they provided and still couldn’t quite make out how.  So I invented something, a sort of Rube Goldberg type fix.

Sigh..

Once I had the thing all tied up (and believe me it involved some interesting contortions on my part!) I looked at the picture supplied with the instructions one more time.

Light dawns over marble head!  What they did was so simple and so elegant, why didn’t it make sense to me before?  I’ll know better next time.

Now I was all set to start tying.  Just in case you are wondering, I did this so that I could tie together all the new warp ends to the old warp ends from the shawl I finished a few weeks or so ago. All 262 of them.  No I’m not nuts, weavers do this all the time (or so I’m told).

The instructions told me to use an overhand knot.  No way!  With slippery yarn the whole thing would just come apart as soon as I put the slightest pressure on the tied together yarn.  No, I had to tie a square knot to join each of the threads.  Did I mention that there are 262 ends – that means 262 knots.  Oh boy!

The fruits of one hour of labor!

(In case you’re wondering – that’s 15 threads per inch. The yarn is Aunt Lydia’s bamboo crochet thread.)