Every time I advanced the warp I spritzed the warp lightly:

• between the fell of the cloth and the reed
• behind the reed
• and between the heddles and the back beam

​
There are two things you may or may not know about me:

1. I pride myself on good selvedges
2. I always beat with a closed shed

Along comes a project that changed everything.  I have been happily charged with weaving the shawls for the attendants in my son's wedding. These are shawls I have woven many times before (see photo on the left), using the exact same yarn I have used before.  

Right from the start, there was trouble.  The silver tencel began to break - sometimes at the back beam, sometimes behind the heddles, sometimes it was a thread near the selvedge, sometimes about 6 inches in from the selvedge.  Before I knew it, I had about 10 repair threads hanging from the back of the loom and I was sure that I had a bad batch of tencel.  The light gray tencel was behaving just fine.  The repair threads behaved better except that one of the 3 threads near the right selvedge continued to break about every 6 to 10 inches.  Needless to say:

1. The right selvedge was suffering (a lot),
2. I would have a lot of repairs to do,
3. Weaving was going very slowly,
4. And I was getting really frustrated!

​Repairing broken threads: 
1. Attach the repair thread to the woven cloth
2. Hang it off the back of the loom

​First wrap the broken thread back around a T-pin in a figure 8. (left)
 
​After threading the repair thread properly through the heddle and reed, wrap it around the same t-pin and secure it around the pin with a figure 8. (right)

Before starting Shawl #3, I had two light bulb moments:

1. My friend Sue suggested that I add a strand of 10/2 pearl to each side of the warp to strengthen the selvedges.  I happened to have some pearl cotton in colors that matched the 2 edge colors pretty well so I could "buddy up" one strand of pearl cotton with one warp thread.  I simply threaded a strand of 10/2 pearl through the same heddle and dent with the outermost warp thread on each side of the shawl and hung it off the back of the loom with a weight - just as I do with my repair threads.
2. I decided to try to reduce draw-in even more (even though I was already weaving with a temple) by beating with my shed open.  That took a little getting used to because I have beating on a closed shed for almost 30 years!