I'm not sure if I mentioned this here before, but a student of mine came up with a great hack that is helpful for a lot of people. Take the plastic top of a spice bottle that has all the little holes. Put each of your four warp ends through a separate hole. Then you can just hold the cap in your hand and wind your warp. always keeping the cap in the same orientation and avoiding twisting your hand.

I bought my warping mill secondhand from a friend in the 1980's! It has no markings on it and If I ever knew what brand it is I don't remember now - sorry!

Fleece and roving work well if you want a puffy stuffing. For flatter stuffing I cut strips of quilt batting and use two or three layers of the batting.

@@jennifermoore1621 Thanks for taking the trouble to reply. Your instructons worked very well.

I put all four threads together in the cross and then they get put into their proper order while threading the heddles and I have never had this cause any problems. You can certainly create a thread-by-thread cross if it makes you feel more comfortable, but it will significantly add to the time involved in winding the warp.

@@jennifermoore1621 Thank you! That has me thinking!

Hi Linda, I don't worry at all about keeping the threads in the proper order as I'm winding the warp and going around the end pegs. As long as you have the four ends separated between your fingers in one hand and keep that hand in the same orientation all the time you are winding, they don't have any opportunity to get twisted around each other. So it doesn't matter if they are in order in the cross or on any of the pegs - that all gets sorted out in threading the heddles. When you go around the end pegs you do get a half-twist, but the top end post is the end of your warp that never gets woven and your bottom end post is the end that gets cut. Even if you were painstaking about keeping the four colors in perfect order as you were winding the warp they wouldn't stay there as you move the warp over to the loom, and you are only making it harder by trying to keep them in perfect order as you wind the warp. If you still have any questions you can contact me through my website, www.doubleweaver.com and I will try to help you out.

You can also use a spool rack or a warping paddle if that is comfortable for you. Let me know if you figure out a better way - I'm always open to improvements!

​@@jennifermoore1621 I am not sure what you mean by spool rack, but maybe you mean a spool table, a table that holds one spool for each warp thread, with or without color changes. That is what I had in mind. I look forward to your future videos and I would enjoy seeing more of your completed work. Thank you so much for responding.

@@jwstanley2645 The spool racks that I am familiar with are vertical racks that can hold many spools, and they are generally used for sectional warping. I do not have one, but they can enable you to wind multiple ends while maintaining a thread-by-thread cross. I am spending much of my time these days preparing materials for teaching my Double Rainbow workshop via Zoom. As part of this I am planning to film a new video on winding a 4-color warp with some more suggestions, as well as some helpful hints while setting up the loom.

I'm in the process of writing a blog post with several alternate ways of winding with multiple strands. It should be up on my website, www.doubleweaver.com in the next couple of days.

thank you very clear - yes I can see how you do it in the video, wasn't quite sure whether it was enough to sort at the heddles. Thank you!

Although I am rotating six colors here, I am only working with four at a time in any given section. And since I am working with an even number of repeats in each section, the cuts are only at the bottom end peg and the loops at the top end peg are uncut as they go on to the back of the loom. You will have four colored threads together in the cross, and they get put into the proper order as you thread your heddles. Because the four threads are kept parallel throughout the warping process they don't get twisted around each other.

@@jennifermoore1621 thank you, crystal clear as ever!

Putting them on in the order I have creates a logical flow to the colors. But you can do whatever you want and see what happens! You might find something really interesting!

Jennifer Moore, I was wondering more if they would get hopelessly tangled or twisted and if that would affect the weave. It’d be great to use this technique for warping anything - even solids, if one doesn’t have to worry about twisting.

@@jenmonn I don't think it would cause any problems with twisting because they are in no set order as you are winding the warp and you put them in order as you thread the heddles. I keep the cones in order as I am warping and in my fingers in order mainly because it helps me keep track of where I am in the sequence. As long as you keep the threads parallel as you are winding so that they can't barber pole around each other they aren't able to twist. If you then wind on back to front they can't twist between the reed and the heddles either. If you do find that there are any twists in back of the heddles as you are weaving you can sort of comb them with your fingers toward the back beam. As long as they don't ever reach into the heddles it will not cause a problem. If I am weaving with a solid color warp I generally wind with two cones at a time - I almost never wind a single warp end. I probably wouldn't wind four of the same color, but there really is no reason why you can't.

@@jennifermoore1621 thanks for your thorough reply!

Each thread moves over one position, and where you tie on to the old one has no relation to its previous position. If you try it I think it will become clear. This keeps the threads in color order and makes it easier to keep track of where you are.

Thanks. Once I started it did become clear, but as it turned out it worked out better for me to do each pass separately. It would be helpful to show how this warping actually goes onto a loom--and also to have closeups so we can see your hands and the patterns of the yarn. Also, I didn't use a raddle cross, since you don't show one, and now I have a big mess. But at least this was a practice run! (Obviously I'm a beginner, still struggling with getting warping right.)

This was a homemade video with a camera set on a tripod in one position, so I wasn't able to do any closeups. Hopefully in the not too distant future Interweave is going to shoot a professional video of this process, in which case I will be able to have closeups and a lot more detail. Good idea to show how the warp goes on the loom - hopefully we can include this as well - thanks for the suggestion! Good onya for giving it a try - it should become easier with more practice!

Might I suggest that in future you set your camera to a horizontal position. It is much easier for our eyes and brain to process visual information on the horizontal plane, that is why every film aspect ratio is wider than it is tall. Our eyes are oriented in our heads horizontally. This is not an issue with still photography as we our eyes are able to scan around the image to take in all the data.

Thank you for the suggestion. With this homemade video we were only able to have one camera position on a tripod and were trying to cover both the cone holder and the warping reel. Hopefully I will be shooting a new video with Interweave in the coming spring, and they will have much more sophisticated equipment and videographers. In the meantime, I hope this video is helpful for those who are trying to wind a four-color warp.