Someone commented that she didn’t have room for a valet. One of the reasons I like the valet is because I have very little room. The only room I need to dress the loom with the valet is the space the bench takes up (I move it to the side of the loom) and the walkway behind the bench. Because, folks, that’s all the room I have! 🙂
Someone else asked about the lease sticks. If I were using traditional Scandinavian techniques, the lease sticks would get moved behind the reed between the reed and back beam. What I do instead is use them to help hold (slight) tension on the threads. Once the warp has been ‘groomed’, the lease sticks get shoved as far away from the breast beam as possible. Then I roll on the length of warp between the lease sticks and the breast beam, using the bamboo blinds for warp packing. Then the chains are ‘groomed’ and the lease sticks shoved up high again. Repeat until done. Transfer cross to behind the heddles (I have Purrington Angel Wings to hold the sticks) and cut the loom at the front of the loom in preparation to thread.
This warp is 11 meters long. From the time I had the jugs weighting the warp until I cut the loops at the front of the loom, the beaming took 16 minutes.
I luv my warping valet!