The Wonder of the Sponge Cake and Weaving

How I wish I made a Sponge Cake this weekend! If only I could.  As we talked about the wonder of tablet weaving and how on earth some human thought of it, Vicki also spoke about the wonders of the Sponge Cake – who would have thought to create that.  All that whipped eggy wonderment. Just the same wonderment that strikes about the interlacement of threads to create a cloth that nurtures and enriches our lives.  The Sponge Cake is on the menu for the next workshop. Weavers be prepared.

Vicki is an established and passionate spinner and weaver who wants to focus more on weaving and is inspired by the Saori philosophy. Here she is weaving with the beater bar. This simple add on to the loom really helps some people keep their backs in a better position for weaving. Handspinners really fall into Saori weaving because their love and knowledge of the creation of yarn kicks off in the weaving.

Kylie is mad about weaving! She has also had extensive experience with the rigid heddle loom and really pushed it to its full potential. Now she is learning about 4 shaft weaving with the 4 shaft spring system conversion kit that is available for the Saori loom.

I had a great time with Kylie because she knew about weave structure and was very much primed for the four shaft loom and what it can do for efficiency, creativity and primarily woven cloth length in general. She threaded the loom with a straight draw. This means 1,2,3,4, repeat. This is the simplest threading to produce a twill weave. The pedals were firstly set up with pedal 1 – 1,2 , pedal 2- 2,3, pedal 3 – 3,4, and pedal 4 – 4,1. The other two pedals were set up for plain weave.

This set up produced a wonderfully drapey cloth with a thick yarn. Typical of the twill set up.

But there are many, many patterns that can be developed with the straight draw on the four shaft. It just means changing the treadling. The pedal set up and which pedals you use for each row. So we ventured into reading drafts because I think you have to for four shaft. You have to know how the structures and notations are comprised – just like notation in music. We took a pattern that needed eight pedals rather than the six pedals on the loom and used a skeleton tie up to make the weave pattern.

A skeleton tie up uses two pedals to create a plain weave, i.e 1 and 3 vs 2 and 4, and the other four pedals hooked up to shaft 1, shaft 2, shaft 3 and shaft 4. This means you will have to press up to 3 pedals at a time to achieve the pattern rows.

Kylie tried a two faced weave which was wondrous…just like a Sponge Cake. The back and front are woven with different yarns, like a double weave but not.

Kylie also had time to wind a warp for another project!