Spinning your own warp is not only possible, it's fairly easy. There are, though, some things that make warp yarn different from weft or knitting yarn:
To spin the warp yarn, I chose the smaller bobbins which came with my Babe spinning wheel. Nels Wiberg supplies 3 bobbins with a 5:1 ratio and 3 with 6:1 ratio along with his Babe's Fiber Starter© spinning wheel.
The 5:1 makes excellent worsted, and once you've got spinning a worsted on that size bobbin, you only need to switch to the smaller bobbin and treadle at the same rate, pulling the fibers a bit more slowly. I used the "inch worm" technique to spin my warp, with one treddle per inch.
As you can see in the picture above, the warp that I spun in this manner produced goods that held tension admirably. Of 128 ends, 3 yards in length, only one snapped ... and that was due directly to a 3 inch section that was slubby and underspun and I passed onto the bobbin as "good enough."
The technique used here to repair the warp was one I also found on the web. Using a 2 yard piece of spare warp I wrapped it and the broken piece in a "figure 8" around a darning pin placed a couple of inches below the top of the weaving. I then threaded the new spare warp through the heddle and tied it with a bow knot to the other broken end as far back on the warp beam as possible.
When weaving progressed to the bow knot, I repeated the threading and "figure 8" process, replacing the original warp through the heddle. Then when the weaving was finished, I used a darning needle to weave in the 4 ends.
After overspinning the yarn and taking it off to a niddy-noddy I discovered that the skein produced was a coiling, narley mess because of the high spin. I put the skein back on the niddy noddy under tensions so that the thread was all straight, then ran it under warm water from the tub faucet and hung the whole thing up in the bathroom to dry. Unfortunately, because of that week's ambient humidity and the multiple layers of yarn wrapped on the niddy noddy it took two days for the yarn to dry.
Rechecking Wiberg's site I discovered that he had a yarn blocker that was made specifically for the purpose of wetting down the warp and then hauling the whole kit and kaboodle out to the back yard to dry. On his suggestion, I chose the sturdier, smaller version.
Nels advises that you can take skeins directly from the swift and put them on and then wet down the yarn, but I'm a creature of shortcuts. Rather than bother measuring and setting my umbrella swift to the correct diameter, I decided to cut to the chase and wet and wrap directly from the bobbin.
Most of Nel's products are made of pvc or dowel wood, and so water is not a problem.
Here, I've put a full bobbin in a dish tub full of lukewarm water and am winding it onto the blocker directly. Of course you can't just let the bobbin bounce around and the yarn wind on willy-nilly, so I was holding the thread to put some tension on it as I wound it on.
I learned the hard way, that wet and at speed, overspun yarn turns into an excellent cutting device.
My first repair to my hands was made with bandaids which work well, but I discovered a forgotten roll of paper "hair setting" tape in my things and found that wrapping it around my thumb, index and middle finger was enough to keep me from wearing slices in my fingers. The paper disentigrates, of course, but it gives enough protection to wind four skeins onto the blocker... which is all I needed it for of course. Smooth plastic tape for making gauze bandages also works well.
Here the warp is drying in a shady, airy place. It takes less than a day for 4 skeins of about 200 yards each (800 yards) to dry fully ... a big advance over a 2 day wait for 200 yards.
Another advantage is that after securing both ends of each skein to the handy velcro tabs Nels places on the center rod of the blocker to hold them, I can wind individual skeins of warp off to cardboard tubes by hand, without bothering to tie them and move them to the umbrella swift. I like using toilet paper, paper towel and wrapping paper cardboard tubes to hold my warp. I wind weft yarn into center pull balls. By doing it that way, I can immediately recognize whether the yarn is warp or woof. I've also found that I can stick a tube of warp on an unused end post of my warping board, rather than letting it roll around on the floor when I'm measuring out my warp. Having the warp already on a tube makes pulling it off and threading it around the warping pegs a breeze.
Just about any cylindrical object that is hollow and open on at least one end will do to hold warp. In the basket you'll see some sea-green (1 lemon-lime + 2 ice-blue raspberry lemonaide Koolaid packets) warp wrapped around a portion of paper towel tubing, and some reddish-pink warp (3 strawberry)wrapped around an empty cat treat tube.
Though white warp is useful, most of the time you'll want colored warp, and that brings up the problem of how to dye it. As mentioned before, unblocked warp yarn is narley, and I was afraid dying skeins in that state would only increase the tangle, possibly making the wool unusable.
I considered blocking the yarn first and then dying it, but I balked at the idea of going through 2 drying periods for each skein.
Instead, I decided to try "dying in the wool" and then spinning the warp from the pre-dyed fibers. Here, I have about 10 cubits of white roving in each plastic container along with 8 cups of water and 4 packets of Koolaid each. (In this example I've used 4 iceblue raspberry lemonaide in one, and 2 orange + 2 mandarin orange in the other.) The wool is dying in the "sun-tea Koolaid" method. That is, I leave it out in the sun for the better part of the day and the yarn takes up all the dye in the process.
Cubits...I pull the roving off the nub and wrap it around my arm from my palm down to my elbow and back again, much as you'd take up a rope. One time around equals about 2 cubits...that ancient measurement from the finger-tips to the elbow. I've found this is a handy way to quickly measure out roving that is of a consistent size without bothering with yardsticks and scales.
About 10 cubits fits well into my small bathroom sink, where I first wet it down with lukewarm water and a tiny squirt of non-conditioner dish detergent -- like dawn or sunlight. Anything that doesn't promise to protect your hands is the stuff you want to use. Cheaper shampoos like Suave also work well.
I then squeeze out the excess water, but do not rinse the roving. I just throw it into the dye, suds and all.
In Koolaid dying, one packet of unsweetened Koolaid per 2 cups of water for 1.25 cubits roving produces a nice pastel. For 10 cubits of wool I use 8 cups of water and 4 packets of Koolaid. I usually go out and check the wool every hour or so, and jostle it around a bit because I'm impatient. Impatience can be a virtue though, as jostling the wool a little to slide it up one side of the plastic container and then flop it back to the bottom so that the "top" of the wool goes in the dye bath and the bottom is flipped to the top, causes a more consistent dying of the wool.
10 cubits of wool produces a little less than one bobbin of warp and one of woof, or about 3-400 yards.
After the dye is all taken up by the wool (I check by tipping the plastic container so that the dye water can run into the clear handle and I can see if there is any tint left)I decant the wool and rinse it once in water that is the same temperature. Though multiple rinsing could remove the fruit smell in the process earlier, I really don't want to over-handle the wool at this point. I'll be rewashing during the finishing process, and any remaining fruit smell will probably be removed at that point.
I then drape the wool to dry...and it usually takes the rest of the day to do it.
I've found that gently squeezing the roving after the rinse then rolling it in a towel as I would a sweater, before laying it out to dry, cuts the drying time significantly. By dusk of the day I started koolaid dying at 11 am, I usually have a couple of colored hunks to start spinning. I'm not above bringing the roving in at sundown and continuing the process by draping them over plastic coat hangers and directing a fan at them with newspapers beneith to catch any stray drips.
I've found that this method of dying significantly changes the texture of the roving. Which can be good.
Regardless of how gently I treat the roving it always takes on a spongier texture.
Rather than trying to spin directly from the roving to the bobbin, I:
Because the roving is now spongier and a great deal more elastic, I must pull it harder and put more tension on the bobbin to get it to the slim worsted cord diameter I'm shooting for to make warp.
On the other hand, using this technique makes a far more consistent, smooth and resilient thread.