AVL Warping Wheel Cross-Maker has arrived.

I decided to go ahead after all and purchase the cross-maker attachment for the AVL Warping Wheel.  While it is perfectly possible to warp the loom using the WW without the crossmaker, I am working at such a level of fineness that just using the masking tape method to keep the warp ends in order for the threading does not really work well. 

Once I got to the threading stage, I realized that I rely on the sense of touch much more than I knew.  Without the porrey cross to refer to by feel, I had to squint and look closely at the underside of the masking tape to discern thread order.  When I would identify the thread I needed and pulled it from the masking tape, it would bring two or three other threads with it, which because it's slippery organzine, would quickly slink to the back of the loom and hang limply off the warp beam.  The thread being almost invisible to my sight because of its fineness, I would then have to get up off the bench, go to the rear of the loom and try to reach over the warp beam to reach down and pull up the errant threads, which I could not see.  Not a solution!!

So with the cross-maker I can make a porrey cross on any warp, and once it's beamed, slide the lease sticks through the cross and suspend it between the warp beam and the rear-most harness in the usual way.  With this totally fine organzine I can wind from four bobbins and have four ends in each crossing - I can still order the threads by feel that way without tangles.  Even in organzine.