At last, the Leaf Motif warp was on the loom and it was time to tie up the treadles. For a countermarch loom like my Glimakra, that used to mean many back-breaking hours on the floor hunching over the treadles. It meant rearranging and rethreading all the treadle cords for each new draft. I have a step-by-step in this post -> Dressing the Glimakra B2F Step 5: Tying Up the Lamms & Treadles.
Then I learned about a method of tying up countermarch treadles from the top of the lamms. I had to give it a try. Here are my blog posts about what I learned and how I set up my loom for it:
- Treadle Tie-Up From the Top For My Glimakra: Resources
- Treadle Tie-Up From the Top: What I'll Need
- Treadle Tie-Up From the Top: Preparing the Texsolv Cords
- Treadle Tie-Up From the Top: Installing the Texsolv Cords
And here's a photo of what it looked like when I was done, ready to tie up the treadles.
I've always tied up the treadles as the last step in dressing the loom, so the warp already tied to the front. With the lamm-top tie-up it's possible to attach the treadles before securing and tensioning the warp. So this time, I had to do my tie-up from the back of the loom, where my bench was already set up for heddle threading. It probably would be easier if done from the front, with the cloth and knee beams removed for easy access to the lamms. I'll try that next time.
They can be adjusted as needed for an even shed. Here's what it looked like
when I was done.
Next, I'll pull the locking pins from the countermarch and make sure
everything is level. Then I'll be ready to start weaving. I have two weights of weft yarn, so I'll be sampling those first.
I made a grid on an index card and diagrammed the tie-up from the draft. On the diagram, I numbered
my shafts and treadles, and made a note for
the marks on the cord.
The marks indicate where to put the anchor pegs.
- Shafts 1, 2, 3 use the top mark.
- Shafts 4, 5, 6 use the middle mark.
- Shafts 7, 8 use the bottom mark.
Lamm-Top Treadle Tie-up © 2026
by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal
4 comments:
Although my mother had a Glimakra for a couple of decades, I never went near it, and have no familiarity with the complexity of countermarch, but even I can tell, this simplifies things quite a lot. Although... you'd still have to get under it all to change the pin positions? Good thinking marking the cords, too.
Meg, all the pin positions remain the same except for on top of the lamms. That can be done from a chair or stool. Much, much better than bending over on the floor!
The countermarch is said to make the best sheds. I can't really address that, except to say I like it better than I did my old jack loom.
Leigh, the complexities of weaving make me appreciate woven products all the more.
Truly amazing.
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