Heddle

Three pieces of arithmetic sit between a cloth design and a yarn order. Each is easy to get wrong, and each mistake costs money.

COUNTS RUN IN TWO DIRECTIONS
• Ne, Nm, Nw and lea are INDIRECT — length per unit mass, so a bigger number is a FINER yarn
• Tex, dtex and denier are DIRECT — mass per unit length, so a bigger number is a COARSER one
• The same number in two systems is a different yarn: 10 is nearly six times heavier read as Ne than as tex. Around 24 they almost agree, which is exactly why the mistake survives
• Heddle converts all seven through tex and plots them on one shared scale, so an indirect count and a direct one can be compared by eye

PLY THAT BEHAVES PROPERLY
Two ends of 20 Ne twisted together weigh twice as much per metre, so the result behaves like a 10 Ne — not a 40. Everything routes through tex, the one system where ply is simply additive.

TAKE-UP AND SHRINKAGE ARE TWO THINGS
• Take-up is warp consumed by interlacing while the cloth is ON the loom
• Shrinkage is length lost OFF it, in washing and finishing
• Both apply, and they compound: 10% and 10% is 23.5% more warp, not 20%
• Draw-in does the same across the width, which is why the reed is wider than the finished cloth

LOOM WASTE IS A LENGTH, NOT A PERCENTAGE
This is the one that decides how you work.

The unwoven warp between the back beam and the heddles, plus the tie-on, is the same length whatever you weave. A metre of it is 17% of a six-metre warp and under 2% of a sixty-metre one.

Heddle draws that curve, marks where your cloth sits on it, tells you the length at which the waste drops under a tenth — and offers to lengthen the warp to it in one tap.

WHAT A METRE COSTS
• Warp yarn, weft yarn and loom time costed separately, because they behave differently as the cloth grows
• Loom hours from picks and a real pick rate, derated by how much of the day the loom actually runs
• What the waste is worth, priced rather than described
• Margin measured on the SELLING price, not marked up on cost — a 40% markup is only a 28.6% margin. Price at a target margin in one tap

A STASH THAT KNOWS ITS OWN LENGTHS
• Weigh a cone and the app says how many metres are on it
• Sort the shelf by count in TRUE order across every system — the printed numbers will not do that
• Search by name, colour, fibre, count or supplier

YOUR DATA, YOURS
• A warping sheet you can pin above the mill: ends, width in the reed, warp length with every allowance itemised, yarn weights and the cost
• CSV of the whole book with the derived columns included
• Full JSON backup and restore. Nothing is locked in

100% OFFLINE. NO ACCOUNT. NO TRACKING.
Everything stays on your device. There is no sign-up, no server and no analytics. The app declares exactly one permission — INTERNET — used solely to open our privacy policy page from Settings. Our Play Data safety declaration is "no data collected, no data shared", and it is accurate.

Heddle works from the counts, setts and allowances you enter. Your own loom and your own finishing beat any rule of thumb.

Free. No ads. No in-app purchases.