This is a weaving tip video. It’s how I manage my loose and extra warp threads using a film canister and fishing weight. It works really well for me and it can be quickly moved along and down the warp when needed.

New weavers may find it useful.

Awaiting yarn has the most incredible potential. What will it become? How will it become?

The ability and skill to manipulate and interweave these threads is where the construction process takes place.

It is said we are all full of potential, like yarn. But we seem to be always waiting and working on the development of our skills with determination, luck or whatever.

How do we learn and why does everyone learn differently? Why do ways of teaching come and go, then pop up again under another purported enlightened strategy? Do we really know anything at all about this except that when it all works it’s a great feeling…both for teacher and student.

The reason why I write about this is because of my intermittent frustration with learning to weave. Although I’ve been weaving for a very long time, I’m still a learner. I collect copious amounts of weave information hoping that its mere ownership will infuse me with its understanding – but it doesn’t.

My biggest frustration is the Complex Weavers Journal. I have many issues that collect in my ‘want to know’ information pile but sadly I don’t understand alot of it. So I read selected articles very carefully. Each line sometimes several times, analysing drafts and images for I’m not sure what! Then I start to wonder about my ability to understand any of the little technicalities that I love. I get so frustrated and often just give up…..annoyed like hell.

But something does eventually ‘click’. By revisiting articles, mostly years after. By referencing the references repeatedly. By sleeping on it – probably too much. And most importantly by actually copying a draft and putting it on the loom. Eventually and unexpectantly, I start to see and feel what’s happening and start to understand. Only after this very, very long process can I envisage possiblities in my imagination.

This points to the value of reading about and seeing how other more experienced weavers develop their weaves. Otherwise I truly believe I would never learn anything…that is without others.

I’ve included a photo of the book I first bought to learn weaving many years ago. My husband made my first loom from its instruction (the weirdest 4 harness frame loom ever) and I began learning about twill, tapestry, rya and the incredible potential of yarn. After that I owe most of my weaving knowledge to Handwoven. Although this magazine doesn’t fulfil my weave needs or styling so much now, it provided an amazing source of discovery, fulfillment and motivation to me for many years. The articles seemed to make the complex possible for me, they were written in a way that encouraged and guided me. I am very grateful for its existence.

Maybe I’ve stumbled on another old learning theory – encouragement from others and a determination in myself to keep reading and re-reading or doing that thing that frustrates me so much, because I really want to know how to do it.

Deflected double weave has grabbed hold on my mind and loom. Now I’m warping up again in a blue/purple/green colourway.

Although deflected double weave is based on a type of double weave structure, in this example it doesn’t actually weave 2 layers at any one time. The weave takes turns in each layer. It swaps position from weaving on top to weaving on the bottom and only weaves in one layer at a time. When there is no interlacing of the threads the weft or warp is unwoven. Madelyn van der Hoogt and Interweave Press provide a comprehensive technical explaination here.

The little challenge I’ve set myself is to see how I can continue to weave air with the deflected double weave but also use more shafts to advantange. Seeking an extension of the possiblities.

My first approach is to create a selvedge fringe using the defected double weave. Barbara Herbster’s original instructions used this concept as a fringe at each end of the scarf but with more shafts I can use a similar idea intermittently along the selvedges as well….I think. I didn’t use Barbara’s fringe on the first scarves as I rather liked the organic look of the felted overhand knots and how they fell in a wild, untendered way.

After tinkering with the design I discovered that the selvedge fringe was still able to be produced using 8 shafts but to create a fringe on every second group of threads it needed 10 shafts. You can see here the 8 shaft version (the 9th shaft represents a gap in the sett for air)

Probably  a better use for my extra shafts is in patterning potential. Here is a great example of a 3 layered deflected double weave.

I always admire fashion drawings. But often the figures aren’t suitable for the type of work I do..at least I don’t think so. 

Pauline Weston Thomas’s site is a great resource for fashion – today’s and previous eras. I used her fashion drawing templates as a ‘kick off’ for my design here. It really just gave me confidence to go ahead as I changed the body and stance anyway. But the site makes you think about changes in modeling and body shapes. Poses acceptable today would not be appropriate for a model of a 17th century dress – the question is WHY? Today models seem to promote ‘desire’ in their stances.  Strangely, acceptable and common place models today have their legs starting at their waist! I’m sure many PHD’s have been written on the subject and I have my own social theories which I won’t bore you with here. However I’d be very happy to hear anyone else’s theories.

The first drawing is what I did in pencil and the second one has some Photoshop editing on it. In Photoshop you can isolate the scarf and change its colours and textures etc. Briefly the steps I used are:

1. Draw the model with pencil/coloured pencil/ kneaded eraser etc.
2. Scan (or take a photo) of the drawing, save as a jpg and open it into Photoshop.
3. Duplicate the original drawing layer so it stays intact.
4. Create new adjustment layers to modify the look. Layer>New Adjustment Layer.
5. Select the scarf using the lasso Tool making your way around its outline.
6. Use the Quick Mask button to correct any wayward selections.
7. When you think you have it right, save the selection – Select>Save Selection, type in a name.
8. I also then Inverse the selection to capture the background. Select>Inverse, then save this selection as well with another name.
9. Now you have access to the scarf and the background at any time by going to Select>Load Selection. From these selections you can change effects etc. Nifty!

Now I’m going to try it all in Illustrator.

When I complete any woven textile I have mixed feelings. One is of excitement at the prospect of seeing the culmination of my work after the finishing process and the other a sense of loss; to the nice weaving rhythm which takes me a warp to build up.

Of course, this sense of loss is only present when it’s been a weave structure which allowed a rhythm to get going. If it hasn’t… a big sense of relief is my overwhelming feeling.

This project was really fun to weave and when the finishing involves fulling wool I get so motivated that I forget about cooking dinner and go straight to boiling the water for the textile. You know how it goes – any left overs in the fridge are perfect for these nights.

The photo here of the cutting apart of the scarves looks very precarious. And it is.  One slip up and the scarf is in trouble. It’s part of the extreme textile work weavers get into. The fabric as it came off the loom was flimsy yet held together better than it looked. I was really careful and sewed the selvedge edges together with quilting cotton to prevent uneven shrinkages at the edges.

I also learnt an interesting thing in this project. After weaving for 30 years with Glimakra boat shuttles, I’ve always had problems with my shuttle shooting between threads (that is the wrong ones) or diving down to the floor under the loom.

 But a friend gave me an old Leclerc shuttle which was alot heavier than my Glimakra ones – 170g. This shuttle worked like a dream.

No more diving into gaps in the weaving or picking up incorrect threads in the shed. But why?? This weave would test the most reluctant shuttle divers as it actually had 1″ gaps in the weave! I think that the heavier shuttle is more assertive and makes its way across the shed as it should. This older Leclerc shuttle isn’t the same as the newer ones as I also just purchased one from Petlins. The whole shuttle thing really interests me as they are beautiful functional objects. But I’m now looking as weight in a shuttle for some types of weaves.

As I’m trying to keep up a weave momentum on my loom and in my head I just needed to get something quickly on my loom before my double weave experiments get up and running. I chose to have a go at a deflected doubleweave scarf that is in Handwoven Jan 09 by Barbara Herbster (p. 44).

I changed the wool, sett and width but I’m hoping it will be very light and drapeable once I’ve taken it off the loom and finished it.  Barbara’s original sett is 24epi but mine is 16epi using a 3/20s wool from the Victorian Tapestry Workshop.

As I’ve got 24 shafts I had to redesign the draft so it included them all but I haven’t taken advantage of them in the design….yet. More shafts offer more design options and the ideas start pouring out. I just need that inspiration from Barbara and to see the threads actually interlacing on the loom.

Air is a popular yarn at the moment and suits our ‘economic times’. Weaving in more air really suits me but too much doesn’t produce a textile.

I haven’t done many dummy warps but my Saori loom presented a nice opportunity for its use last week. I’d come to the end of the original black warp and had dyed another cotton one to beam. Simply tying on the new warp on seemed so sensible to me. I didn’t use a weavers knot although this is possibly the best choice – I used an ordinary square knot.

It had to be the secure square knot with no slippage. Don’t use the granny knot (see here), as it slips easily. The knot was a bit wasteful on the ends but it ensured the knots could be tied securely, and I trimmed some of the ends before beaming.

Weave blogger Peg shows a more comprehensive image of how the warp is attached. The cross sticks for the new warp must be maintained in a good position near the raddle to knot each thread in its turn. I am using the same sett for this warp as the previous one so it is a straightforward job.

I opted for the dummy warp because it seemed easier in this situation where I just wanted to ‘replenish’ the warp for the type of freestyle weaving I do on this loom.

I don’t think that tying a dummy warp is necessarily a quicker way of warping either. But a better reason is to save on expensive yarn, like silk, which ends up being a weavers thrum – i.e. waste yarn. The necessary waste yarn at the end of a warp in weaving distresses me and a dummy warp is a good solution. However, I usually paint my warps along the entire length of the warp and then sell the handpainted short lengths of yarn on Ebay to embroiderers or other textile crafters.

My completed first Saori cloth using the clasped weft technique measured over four metres. I created two table runners and I’m so happy with them. I gave one to a friend and have the other on my table. It just brightens my day every time I look at it.

I finished off the ends by enclosing them in a black cotton bias which produced a neat finish especially when the cloth wasn’t a tight weave or could produce elegant fringing without adding a faux fringe.