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.