I rinsed out the painted warp yesterday morning, and alas! my fears were confirmed. The metallic gold polyester threads came leaping out of the warp, catching on things, kinking, and generally misbehaving. The warp is in enough disorder that I think I’m just going to toss it; it would be a nightmare to weave.
So I have wound another warp, this one 100% tencel, and will paint it over the weekend. I’ll wind a separate warp chain of metallic gold polyester thread and just intersperse the chains when threading.
This leaves the question of how to handle beaming on the warp. I have three options for both tencel and painted warp: beam it onto the warp beam, throw it up and over a trapeze, or use Sandra Rude’s method for creating an auxiliary beam out of cardboard tubing. With the painted tencel warp, I’d like to toss it up and over the trapeze, so I can adjust each bout separately if they get out of line with each other. But I don’t think that method will work for the polyester; it’s too slippery and I’m afraid of it slipping out of the choke ties and getting uneven.
So that leaves the options of putting it on the warp beam or using Sandra’s method. The problem with putting it on the warp beam is that, at 10 epi in a fine thread, I’m worried about breaking threads. The problem with Sandra’s method is that I’ve never used it before, so it’s unfamiliar.
I think, however, that Sandra’s method will work better, so I’m going to give it a try. (Besides, as Mae West said, “Given a choice of two evils, I like to choose the one I haven’t tried before.” Wise woman!) I still need to paint the new warp, which may need to wait until tomorrow because I’m feeling under the weather today.