So, how do YOU avoid lingering warps? Here are some suggestions I made in the HW ND09 Endnotes:
1. Put on short warps
Similar to not over-driving your headlights, learn how long your attention span is and don't over-warp it. If you know from experience how long your attention span is(n't), then put on just enough warp to last that long. If you're guesstimating, bear in mind that hares tend to overestimate their attention span, especially when caught up in that just-out-of-the-gate thrill of starting a new project when our enthusiasm is at a high.
2. Learn to warp really fast
Putting on short warps means warping your loom more often ('cause you'll be weaving those warps right off rather than have them linger, is the idea). If you're like me and like putting a warp on your loom as much as (or more than!) weaving it off, this is great news! Even if you're not like me, it's good for a hare to know how warp fast for a couple reasons: less of your limited attention span gets used up in warping, and being able to warp fast makes you far more likely to put on short warps because dressing the loom doesn't seem like such a chore and/or obstacle.
3. Choose simple structures
This follows directly from #1 and #2: a simple structure will weave faster than a complicated one, so is "shorter" in that sense, and simple structures are faster to thread and less likely to produce threading mistakes that take time to fix, so it's also faster to dress the loom with them.
More than that, though, simple structures demand less attention from you, in effect putting your weaving attention span on pause for a while and saving some of it for later. If you can think about or even do other stuff while you're threading and/or weaving it's like you've taken a "hare break" while you're still weaving. While threading and/or weaving, I often: listen to the radio, listen to books on tape, talk on the phone, plan other projects in my head (or on the phone), chat with friends via webcam, chat on Twitter, give and/or ask for weaving advice online, play with my kitties, etc.
Granted, those things which require my hands (typing or petting my cats, for instance) do interrupt threading or weaving for a minute or two, but they don't require me to stand up and leave the loom. As long as I'm weaving a simple structure it's not hard to find my place again so the interruption is as short as possible. Avoid things that do make you get up and move around 'cause hares find it very hard to come back to a project once they've taken an extended break.
4. Plan for variation
Hares tend to get excited about a project at the beginning 'cause they're anxious to see how that new fibre/colour/structure/set is going to work out... and then we weave a few inches and the mystery's gone but the warp stretches on for yards. GAH!
If you can reintroduce the mystery every so often, you can recapture that excitement for a little while. Projects that involve changes of some kind along the length of the warp will periodically inject a bit of life into a hare's failing attention span. I'll often plan to change my weft colour, weft fibre, the treadling, the warp colour order or even the entire threading at points along the length of a longer warp just so that I have something to look forward to. It's almost like putting on several short warps without having to redress the loom between them.
So there are a few suggestions. I've got some more but will save them for later 'cause I want to see what others have to say about it!
