Weaving Techniques || Binding Off a Weave

A little bit ago, I received a question from a reader who had woven all the way down to the bottom of her loom. Her weave was finished and ready to take off the loom, but now she realized she didn’t have much warp thread left to finish the weave.

She asked if she had to un-weave the bottom to make the warp threads long enough for her to finish the weave. Luckily the answer was no! Because who wants to un-weave some of their work, unless they really have to.

Since she had used a peg loom for her weaving, she could bind off those short warp loops much like you would bind off a knit or crochet project.

This is an especially great technique because it allows you to use as much of your loom’s space as possible. As you can see I wove one end of my weave as far as I could on the warp threads. This left very tiny warp loops. I could hang the weave from a thin rod, but I didn’t want to hang this weave in that way, so I’m finishing off the edge with a bind off finish.

One thing to note is that the opposite end of my weave does have longer warp threads. I need at least one side with long warp threads so that I can cut one of the ends off the loom and release the tension so that I can remove the weave from the loom. It would be really hard to do this if I wove both ends all the way to the edge, because it would be hard to do a tie off finish on the short warp ends I cut.

For the bind off, I have all warp loops because I tied the warps at the opposite end of the loom. If you have some tied warps and the rest are loops, this will still work just put the single warp end through the first loop, then proceed as below. You can end the bind off with the last single warp end through the last warp loop. Let’s get started:

step1|| turn your weave over so that it’s back is facing up. Taking the first warp loop in your hand twist it to tighten it against the weft thread.

step2|| next use a crochet hook, or something similar, to pull the second loop through the first twisted loop hole.

step3|| slide the first loop down to the base of the second loop, then twist the second loop.

step4|| continue with pulling the next loop through the prior loop, push that prior loop down around the next loop. Then twist the loop on your crochet hook. Do this all the way across the bottom of your weave. You’ll see that the warp loops will lay nicely across the bottom of the weave, almost as if they are braided.

Here is a video of the process, because seeing the technique in action helps a lot!

step6|| to secure the loop, I thread a piece of sewing string through the loop and then under the nearest warp thread and double knotted the loop to the warp thread. This will hold the finish in place. I tuck the ends of the sewing thread and then trimmed them.

For the warp threads I had to cut on my opposite end, I followed this way of finishing the edge.

Have you finished your weave in this way before, or maybe done something different but similar? I’ve love to hear about it.  Oh and did you miss the free pattern for this weave?!

Happy Weaving!

Kate

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