Mystery tablet weave. Step 5 Anchoring the Ends- part 1

[watervole]

Each end of our loom needs to be secured before weaving can begin.

What we are creating here is a ‘weaver tensioned loom’. This means that one end is fastened to a fixed point: the back of a chair, a door handle, a clamp, or anything else handy, and the other end is fastened to the weaver’s waist using a belt. This means that loom tension can be easily adjusted by leaning back or forwards, or by moving your chair a little.

I’m going to show several options here.

The simplest one of all is the overhand knot. I did my first piece of tablet weaving this way. It works okay, but other methods allow the cards to slide a little more freely.

The knot can be tied to your door handle, back of chair, etc. just by tying a spare bit of yarn round it and tying the yarn above the knot.

Literally, just tie some yarn around the big knot and tie it to to something solid and fixed. Door handles work as long as you're pulling in the right direction, but you could wedge it into a closed window, fasten it to a hook, or whatever you like.

At the weaver end of the loom, it can be tucked through your belt. The belt will stop the knot slipping out.

Another option for the end away from the weaver is using weaver’s knots to attach the warp threads to a pencil.

Tie a simple knot and add a bow or half bow if you have enough yarn left.

See that loop of string fastened to the pencil at both ends? That’s important.

Weaver’s knots slide sideways easily - that string in a tight knot (I use a clove hitch) stops it sliding off the pencil.
(You can also use the string to loop once or twice round the top of a clamp, if you happen to be using a clamp to hold your end.)

If you go with the weaver’s knot option, make sure you have several cards worth of threads in each knot, or you’ll spread the warp threads too far apart.