New-to-me AVL Warping Wheel!

I loathe winding warps. My horizontal warping mill works, I guess. I got it for free when I got my loom, and it was an older piece of equipment that someone had cobbled together. It's certainly easier for me to use it than the warping board I had, though I still don't enjoy it.

Sectional warping appeals to me because there's far fewer threads overall to manage, and my loom came with a sectional back beam. So it was only a matter of time until I tried it out.

Ever since I learned of the AVL Warping Wheel, I knew I wanted one. That was months ago. The warping wheel is not something I could easily impulse purchase, as it is nearly $1,000 and quite a large object (my apartment is low on free floor space).

Every now and then I would still check to see if someone was selling one. Every now and then I would see that the seller either was located too far from me to make shipping costs worthwhile, or the cost was still too high.

Incredibly, about a week ago, I found a listing for a gently-used AVL warping wheel a mere one hour drive from me, at an incredible price.

My very patient and very understanding husband signed off on the acquisition of the warping wheel.

I was able to wind a warp on it last night! Nearly 300 ends went on in just a couple hours. I did choose a short, 3 yard warp. But a similar warp usually takes me nearly twice as long to wind and crank on.

My very first section, wound off the AVL warping wheel!

The warping wheel is a huge process improvement because:

• The spool placement in conjunction with total rotations measures the warp for me
  • And I don't have to follow a yarn guide!
• I don't have to count how many ends I have: the magnetic counter does that for me
• The warp "chain" is narrow and much easier to manage, so I can easily beam on by myself
  • I had figured out how to dress my loom alone with a traditional warp chain, but that process takes quite a long time, and there is a lot of room for error
• Much more ergonomic overall!

I am usually crafting after work. My job is intellectually demanding, and I find it's difficult to concentrate on something like winding a warp afterward. It used to require my constant attention to tension, counting warp ends, tying the cross, managing the warp chain, etc. etc. Now it takes far less mental effort.

And I built a very simple calculator to help with the spool set up and number of rotations to do. Find it here!