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Total Records Found: 70, showing 25 per page
We have all done it: woven a perfect plain weave, then wet finished it and been confronted with some kind of weird design. What happened?
This is referred to as tracking, and it’s most visible in plain weave. Consensus concludes that when the twist energy in the yarn meets water, it allows that twist to shove the yarns around within the cloth. This article explores why tracking happens and how to minimize it. It explores the impact of cloth density, structure, and yarn choice.
Wrap yourself up in a gorgeous handwoven blanket that features a minimalist and modern approach to colour.
For this blanket design, Felecia wanted to create something that could be woven on a compact 4-shaft loom and still be wide enough to serve beautifully as a lap blanket. Woven at 24 inches (61 cm) wide in the reed, this blanket opens up to about 48 inches (122 cm) but then settles down to 42 inches (107 cm) wide after wet finishing. It’s a perfect size to cozy under for Netflix and knitting sessions.
What’s better than one layer of plain weave cloth? Two layers of plain weave cloth, being woven at the same time! Doubleweave is a fascinating weaving technique where the weaver creates more than one layer of cloth on the loom at once (image 1). Imagine two layers of cloth on your loom at the same time. Those two layers can be woven as two completely separate layers with two separate weft shuttles, or the two layers can be joined on one side to make a cloth that is double the width of the cloth in the reed. The layers can be joined on both sides to make a tube, or stitched together while on the loom to produce a cloth where the two layers cannot be separated from each other. There are magical and innovative ways of weaving with doubleweave, but one of the most practical uses is to weave a double–width cloth.
This article beautifully articulates and shows how to weave a doubleweave, double-width cloth along with tips and tricks to make it easy, tidy, and stunning.
Creating rhythm with woven stripes is a way of dividing up space, creating a sense of flow and movement. In many ways, it’s similar to rhythm in music, where rhythm provides structure and interest that complement the notes of a melody.
In this article Tien explores rhythm in weaving with a focus on regular rhythm, progressive rhythm, fibonacci stripes, irregular rhythm, combining rhythms, and how to design with rhythm. She tells you how she does it so it’ll be easier for you!
Weaving is a craft rooted in precision, knowledge, and patience. One of the most common issues handweavers face when producing cloth is the discrepancy between what is planned on the loom and what appears after finishing. This is due to three key phenomena: draw-in, take-up, and shrinkage. Understanding the meanings of these terms and how they interact can help you mitigate their effects so that your final cloth matches your vision.
This article explores and explains draw-in, take-up, and shrinkage and their effects on plain weave cloth. Jay also delves into how sett effects everything and how to predict and mitigate shrinkage.
Primaverde, or “new spring,” was an appropriate name for this two–block deflected doubleweave threading variation using ten treadles. Deflected doubleweave is a weave that has plain weave, warp floats, and weft floats. This beautiful scarf is much simpler than it looks!
Plain weave is often, in twenty-first-century American handweaving circles, regarded as a stepping stone to other structures. A requisite structure for an introduction, if that, but seldom a structure to be dwelt on, let alone to build a career on. This should come as no surprise, considering the position that handweaving occupies in this particular time and place. No longer a generator of essential textiles, handweaving is more novelty than utility. We weave by hand because we want to. If every handloom ceased operations the world would not go unclothed. Born out of creative impulse and curiosity, our time at the loom is often spent exploring the infinite possibilities for interlacing yarns. I don’t have any hard data, but my hunch is that very few American handweavers spend their entire weaving lives producing plain cloth. It gets left behind like those first strips of construction paper in an elementary school classroom. Too basic, too boring. Kid stuff. Over one, under one, over one, under one. Next.
This article is one that every weaver should read. It is stunning.
The WEFT team decided to see exactly how plain weave stands up against twill and broken twill when it comes to wear and tear, stretch, and drape! You’ll be surprised by the answers!
This premiere issue of WEFT demonstrates that plain weave is far from being plain. In fact, plain weave can have a number of different interpretations. Plain weave may be balanced or unbalanced, including warp- or weft-faced. It even includes basketweave and color-and-weave effects. Plain weave can range from flat, delicate, and gauzy to highly textured, lofty, or dense. It can be used as a blank canvas for weaver-manipulated lace weaves and inlay. What plain weave is not is synonymous with “tabby.”
This article explores what tabby is and isn’t and the larger idea of weaving language across time and cultures.
All structures will have a form of plain weave, although it may not be as simple as one up, one down. It could be two up, one down, or even three up, two down, depending on the threading. So when a pattern says “Use tabby,” it means that a simple interlacement can be found in the structure, given a one up, one down alternation. Overshot is an excellent example of this and uses alternate warp ends on alternate shafts to form tabby.
In this article, Jette explores and explains how to find plain weave in any structure.
The Oxford English Dictionary says to deflect is to “cause (something) to change direction; turn aside from a straight course.” In weaving, plain weave is the tightest of all interlacing, with each end and pick floating over and under just one end and one pick. This weave structure will not shift or “deflect” very much when washed, because there is no space for an end or a pick to move around. However, long floating ends and picks are free to move in any direction they wish, and generally they tend to collapse into themselves. When plain weave is adjacent to long floating ends and picks, then suddenly plain weave ends and picks have space to move. They deflect into the floating ends and picks. This combination of weave structures creates textured cloths with the plain weave areas turning into circles. There are several weave structures that fall into this category. This article explores and explains DD and gives a study gamp so you can learn even more!
The words “colour-and-weave” (C&W), mean magical patterns that appear in a weave structure created by using combinations of dark and light colours in the warp and the weft. These sequences of dark and light can be overlaid on top of any weave structure: plain weave, twills, units and blocks.
The best way to learn these patterns and see them as a language is by learning them on plain weave. When we become familiar with them on plain weave we start to recognize them like letters of the alphabet. Once they become part of our weaving vocabulary we can start using them in other surprising ways. Jane taches you this language in this wonderful article. You’ll learn seven magical sequences that will transform anything you’re weaving! Includes a study gamp.
Hand spinners can change the direction of their spinning wheels or spindles, placing twist into the fibres in either the clockwise (Z-twist) or counterclockwise (S-twist) direction. To create a yarn that is balanced, a single must be spun in one direction, then plied with one or more other single(s) in the opposite direction. This article explores whether the twist direction of yarns noticeably affects the fabric, whether it causes any tracking, and how well the yarns nestle into one another, closing gaps and holes in the plain weave (PW) fabric. The results are stunning!
The plain weave structure is one of the most honest arrangements in weaving. Warp and weft have equal representation on both sides of the cloth, a feature lending itself to exploration of specific design elements. The magic of this structure is how every small detail will reflect in the surface of the cloth; a change of beat, a slub in the yarn, or even a skipped thread cannot hide. This article explores texture and using it to our advantage.
Students often ask whether or not different fibers and different-sized yarns can be used together. In most cases, the answer is yes. However, when deciding how to mix and match different fibers – or even the same fiber that has been treated or spun differently, or is a significantly different size there are some important considerations, this article explores and explains what those are.
This stashbusting shawl really illustrates that plain weave can be anything but plain. By incorporating colour, different fibres, and other techniques on a plain weave threading you can weave something unique and beautiful.
The techniques used in this project include hemstitch, Brook’s Bouquet, clasped weft, inlay and hemstitch. Introducing multiple techniques as well as multiple fibres can result in changes that add to the originality of the project.
Plain weave might be the most basic weave of them all, but it can take you on grand adventures with even the humblest of looms.
When you look at plain weave in detail, it is beautifully simple. The weft travels a regular path over one warp thread and under the next. The warp follows the same pattern, over and under the weft, in a soothing rhythm.
This article covers the basics of plain weave, plain weave in other structures (like overshot, S&W, and undulating twill), and is just a gorgeous piece on this humble and brilliant structure.
We’ve all had it happen to us. During wet finishing, our cloth winds up with “permanent” creases – creases that refuse to come out, no matter what we do.
Are these creases really “permanent”? Are there methods to remove or lessen them when they do develop? Which of these methods work best (or at all)? Laura Fry experiments on the best way to diminish these “permanent” creases and how to keep them from presenting in the first place!
Jane Stafford jumped at the opportunity to share her deepest thoughts on one of her favourite subjects. In her humble opinion, plain weave is the best weave structure in the world. She tells you why it’s so great and what it’s meant in her life including how it’s perfect for new weavers, it’s a comfortable canvas to grow from, how it’s a continuous teacher in her weaving life, how she’s made 1000 plain weave mohair blankets, and more.
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