I'm weaving a variation of Granny Pam's towels just for a little boucle fun. When I spread the warp, I noticed the fell line on the left was a little high, so I untied the knot and tied it a little tighter; that bout of threads felt a little looser than the others. It seemed to work so I started weaving. Everything looked good until it didn't. As I was nearing the end of the first towel, I noticed that the left end of fell line was a quarter inch higher than the right end. It was a gradual increase from just about the center of the 22 2/3 inch towel. I thought that maybe it had to do with tucking a tail when I changed colors so I un-wove about 6 inches. At that point I measured again and it was about 1/8 of an inch higher on the left than the right. Progress, but not a solution.

Is a little variation just part of working with boucle?

Is there a solution other than cutting off the current weaving and tying on again? In retrospect, I wonder if untying that first bout of threads and retying it after I'd already woven a couple inches of spreading threads at the beginning was the problem?

I'm weaving on a 4-shaft Baby Wolf (26 inch, I think). I never have this problem on the right side, only the left. I warp right-to-left. There are more empty heddles on the left side than the right side, would that matter?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Hi Sandra,
Metal ones. Are they called "Inserted Eye?"

Is it snowing on Salt Spring Island? It's snowing down here in North Seattle.

Kindest regards,
Cynthia

Hi Sandra,
Thanks for getting back to me. I'm going to try to upload a link the ImgBB where I hopefully uploaded the picture. Nope, full link didn't work. I'll try viewer link:
https://ibb.co/YfgMgpV

The colors are wonky in the photo because the lighting in my "studio" is sub-optimal; blues get washed out. I un-wove down to a straight fell line and hope to reweave today. I have a class this afternoon, so I may not get much weaving done.

Thanks for your help.
Kindest regards,
Cynthia

Hi Sandra
Thank you so much and my thanks to the Dream Team member who responded with such good suggestions. Much, much appreciated!

I know that there are more heddles on the left than the right, so I'll add a little weight as suggested to the right on each of the shafts. Unfortunately, the Loet cookie jar is nowhere near full enough yet to make the change.

I sit centered, so that isn't the issue, but I think I don't always beat from the center with my left hand. I'll pay much more attention to that. I'm pretty sure that I have the same number of empty dents on both sides of the reed, plus or minus one or two. I'll check how the reed is sitting in its reed valley to make sure it isn't skewed. My guess is that it's mostly a beating issue and maybe a bit of reed skew because the fell was straight earlier in the towel.

Thank you again for your help!

Kindest regards,
Cynthia

Any report with your fell line?

Thanks for asking, Barbara.
I've observed that when my attention starts to drift or I start to weave too quickly, the fell line on the left starts to drift, too. I've unwoven and rewoven sections when it's been too noticeable. I've also noticed that when I advance the the warp, I have to crank the warp really, really tight; often one "click" past where I would have been comfortable with it being. This helps for a while. When I start or end a thread on the left - and tuck in the tail - that can cause a bit of disturbance, too. Sometimes it resolves in a half dozen picks and sometimes I unweave and reweave.

As Sandra pointed out, the number of empty heddles can make a difference. The majority of the empty heddles are on the left side. I will straighten that out when I finish the run. The next run will be back to 8/2 cotton and I will remove most of the "projected to be" empty heddles before I thread them. I'm anxious to see what difference that makes.

I think I have about 3 yards left on the warp beam. I was hoping to weave today, but so far housecleaning has interfered yet again.

Thanks for the info. Interesting I would like to have more info once you rethread and sley and how it has worked. Yes, house cleaning!
OFF TOPIC: I have been cleaning my weaving spaces and reorganizing. Trying to create more storage and better categories for storing supplies. I live in a small house with small rooms, so I have to spread these studio stations around the house.

Hi Barbara,

I'll post again when I warp the loom next. I thought about trying to remove the excess heddles on the left side of each of the shafts while it's still warped. I decided not to do that as it seems like there's too good of a chance of a weaving disaster that will make a slightly raised fell seem like the good ole days. I guess the up-side of this is that I know that I want to be able to manage the heddles "in real [weaving] time" when I get another loom.

Your off-topic comment is interesting. I live in a small house, too. I weave in a mostly finished basement. Organization is a persistent problem. The studio is due for a thorough spring cleaning and stash "bouncing."

Down to the basement for what I hope will be a delightful afternoon of weaving.