Plain weave double weave! Success at last! Well, sort of...

September 17, 2011

I finally figured out how to do plain wv dbl wv.  Love this crappy table I got off the side of the road.  It makes a great table to hook my loom up to.  Nice and heavy.

All I really did was the same thing I do with warp face weave and space the warps further apart.  I twined the bottom edges for spacing and used double stranded worsted weight yarns for the continuous heddles.  Works great so far.  Now to figure out the patterning.

I did alot of reading to figure this out!  Handwoven turned out to have a great article in their Jan/Feb 2011 on dbl wv bk marks that made it finally click.  However, I am not using 4 shaft/sheds I am picking and counting the same way I do for warp face dbl wv.  I will indeed develop the other two sets of heddles later on to see if I can make it even quicker.  I just felt like it was taking longer to set up than it would take to weave the piece anyway, so who needs two more sets of heddles.  If it was any faster it would defeat all of the prep work, kind of a let down to be finished so soon.

It is also just a practice piece with mystery yarn, so definitely alot of learning going on.

This just lets you see the table.

Here you see where I twined and lashed my warp to the bar.  I am trying to accomplish a 4 salvaged piece.  In other words no fringe.  As well as having interchangeable colors from back to front.

Of course Wiggles has to supervise.  See the little weaving...on the back the colors are reversed.  Notice how you can see the up and down threads (warp) and the side to side threads (weft)...not what I usually do.

The back side.

The front side.

And here I decided to switch the colors, now they opposite color is showing!

Update:  Later the same day...


Been working on this all day and I have learned some things if you guys are interested.

First off I was using the same dbl wv system Laverne taught us…stick shed and heddle shed with separating out each color as needed by picking. When I tried to do a pattern it was a dismal failure this way. Just couldn’t seem to get it to work. Soooo…back to the books.

I went ahead and put in 4 sets of continuous string heddles, per the draft (just learning to read these also, another new skill). Somehow I had trouble, couldn’t get it to work with the treadling sequence my books gave. So I persevered and figured out the sequence for putting which ever color I wanted on the top face. Maybe I threaded wrong for the sheds/shafts, but I did get it to work. Eventually.

When I replaced my original heddles and stick shed with the string heddles, I only used single worsted for the heddles…instead of double stranded worsted as I had in the start. I am now getting narrowing. I have unwoven several times and I can’t figure out if I am having problems because my heddles aren’t as thick and helping out with the spacing, or if you just get different tension in general with 4 sets of string heddles. Or if maybe I am just frustrated and tired. lol I did find that the tension was very different when I used string heddles on my few pebble weaves. so it might just be the nature of the beast.

Then I tried, per, the instructions to do a pattern. A simple diamond. Still can’t seem to get it. Weird. I am also finding that I horribly miss the clean lines of my warp face dbl wv…instead of the stepping on the edges of this weave. I know true Finnweave, which is not reversible, gives cleaner lines, but I am threaded for ldld (supposed to be more attractive on the back if not completely reversible), not llddlldd. So I am committed at this point, as I refuse to redo the heddles yet again. I am also finding that I prefer finger picking/counting to all of these fiddly string heddles (no offense Laverne, I know how you love using all of the heddles). Maybe I just like to more tactile feel of getting down in there with my fingers/hands. I am also thinking…that I may have more design freedom without all of these heddles…will have to keep at it to figure that one out.

So for now, my shoulders are screaming, and my brain is fried…but I am closer to achieving the goal than ever before. I can at least get double face plain weave, which by the way is very very near to balanced. More so in the part that is narrowing. In the first part I get 9wpi and 8ppi…in the part that narrowed I am getting 8x8.

So those are my thought on plain dbl wv up to this point. whew, tired…

September 18, 2011  Sunday


Well I got a diamond of sorts.  Unfortunately one side isn't closed/connected.  Hmmm, definitely not my best work.  But o.k. for a first attempt.  It also kept getting more and more narrow as well.  Better next time.