100 Horizontal Stripes Project – using stripes to create handwoven Christmas ornaments

100 Horizontal Sripes Cover Shot

Need to make something unique for your weaving friends and family this year? I have new project plan just for you. Using horizontal stripe patterns you can create a beautiful Christmas tree decorated with one of a kind handwoven ornaments that you design and personalize.

Over 100 patterns and drafts to launch your imagination, with no upper limit to the designs you can create on your own. There are no loom size or shaft restrictions to to hold you back, every pattern can be woven on every loom, by any weaver regardless of skill and experience.

Package includes instructions, 100 drafts in .WIF format, and a new painless pickup format that uses Microsoft Excel. No worry about having drafts that are too small to read, with Excel you can enlarge them easily without a loss of resolution.

With more than 100 drafts you will also get a digital catalogue PDF of the draft files and photos of each draft as it was woven to use as an index to the draft collection.

Tree Project ExampleMoose ExampleClick to purchase your copy of 100 Horizontal Stripes Project:

Jennifer’s Draft Number #2

Jennifer wrote to me and asked me about this draft she had found in a file. She was not familiar with this particular draft and wanted to learn more about it. My first step was to look at the blocks – the areas separated by the long lines. Most of the sections have 4 lines in them in two rows. It appears that this draft is on four shafts. Likely it is an overshot draft.

I looked at the sequence of the blocks, reading from the right to the left,  A block has lines on shaft 2 and shaft 4, B block has lines on shaft 2 and 3, C block has lines on shaft 1 and 3, D block has lines on shaft 1 and shaft 4. Looking through the rest of the draft the are no other combinations of lines. Our Draft has 4 blocks. I then could label the blocks on a piece of paper

I then wrote the draft out in my notebook, matching the lines and the threads by the block I identified.

I then translated this into a profile draft by substituting  the A Block for shaft 1, the B Block for shaft 2, the C Block for Shaft 3 and the D Block for shaft 4. Because some of the blocks had 4 threads and some only 2. I decided to use two threads to represent the four thread blocks, and one thread for the half block. I treated the 3 thread block as a two thread block for the profile.

I set the tie up to ABCD, to match the blocks.

I then selected tromp as writ, and colored the warp a contrasting color to make the design appear.

While I was entering the draft into the iWeaveit program, I noticed that some of the draft was not even (balanced) I adjusted the draft to make it even.

I had found one place where the draft did not move sequentially through the blocks. Usually overshot moves in a circular fashion through the blocks, jumping blocks can cause long floats to appear. You can see the area on the on the bottom line towards the left edge the block moved from D to B and back to D again. This is in one of the short blocks. This is not the way the other side of the block is, and so I adjusted it to match the beginning of the block sequence.

At this point you can not weave the pattern, but you have a fairly good idea of what the design will look like when woven.

The blocks in the threading move gracefully from left to right and the designed when woven will have that characteristic of a 45 degree diagonal line from bottom right to top left.

When this design is woven it will need to have a border and a number of repeats to match the size of the fabric desired. To repeat the design you would start from the top right of the threading and enter that sequence after the last thread on shaft 4 in the draft.

At this point, you are missing the threads for the ground cloth. The tabby weave.

To weave this pattern I will need to decide what structure it is, and then change the draft to have that threading arrangement.  I will show you how I do this in the next blog update.

 

This is a quick look at the profile draft as it is repeated.

There are tables (the big blocks) and smaller blocks in the middle. The pattern will look like the checkerboard you see, to prevent long floats.

I am sure this pattern can have variations. This is a sample of what it would look like if it remained symmetrical.

 

 

 

Angstadt 6 Block Double Weave

This is a scarf that I wove in double weave on my 24 shaft AVL loom 11 years ago. It was woven in burgundy and white cotton.

I hand knotted the fringes and beaded it. I believe that I gifted this it was not sold. If you have it please send me a photo of you with it.

Here is the image of the draft I used.  I was using WeavePoint at the time, and I can now no longer open the draft file.

I will post it here for someone who has WeavePoint, perhaps you can turn it into a .WIF file for me.

The source of my profile was the Jacob Angstadt Designs – Figure 164

My current weaving software is WeaveMaker. I am using a MAC system.

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Double Bow Knot Coverlet

Woven sample of Double Bow KnotAn old pattern in overshot weaving that has had many names over time: Muscadine Hills, Hickory Leaf, Blooming Leaf.  The Double Bow Knot name comes from the leaf like square  that forms the larger portion of the design. The dark square is called a table. Because there are two motifs used the pattern it may be most properly described as a Double Bow Knot and table design.

This design can be woven with only four shafts in an overshot structure. Overshot blocks can share shafts, which is what makes them so efficient. It is a structure that will require you to have planned your design carefully before you thread your loom. The threading typically is the most limiting design factor. coverlet - francis goodrich with coverlet

The goal of traditional overshot weaving is to be able to “square” the blocks as they are woven from the lower right hand corner of the loom to the left most block, which will result in the leaf or bow portions being square also. The coverlet in the photo on the right was not a perfect square and did not “match” when sewn together. This could be from the choice of threads for pattern and weft, and it may also have been impacted by how tightly it was beaten when woven.

DoubleBowknot_Pattern - old drafting methodEarly copies of drafts for this coverlet were written with a different notation than weavers use today. Draft of Pattern from Edward Francis Worst The only threads listed were pattern threads. Weavers were expected to  know where the plain weave threads were to be placed. The draft to the right is a modern version of the draft on the left. All of the needed threads are shown for the pattern. It is read from right to left and top to bottom. What it does not tell you is anything about the needed tie-up or the treadling.

Not to despair, these early weavers knew some basic weaving information that may not be apparent to weavers today. If you look closely that the draft above on the right, every other thread appears on either the first or second shaft, this is our clue as to where the plain weave background will come from. The first treadle will need to be tied to shafts 1 and 2 and the second treadle will be tied to shafts 3 and 4. When you alternate these using treadles you will achieve a plain “tabby” weave. When translating a historic pattern I suggest simplifying it into a profile draft to demonstrate the order and number of blocks that must be threaded on the loom.  When you do this you can now use any block structure you would like.double bow knot profile draft This design can be woven using any loom that can support 4 blocks of the desired structure. This pattern in overshot will require 744 threads. If sett at 24 threads per inch a single repeat will be  31 inches wide when woven. In the photo of the full coverlet above the coverlet was woven with 2 and 1/2 repeats in each piece. The documentation for the coverlet indicates it was sett at 40 ends per inch (epi). It would have likely to have been woven on a 60″ wide loom.

This profile could be woven as:

  • Overshot or Crackle on a 4 shaft loom
  • Spot Bronson, Bronson Lace, Huck Lace, Summer and Winter, Even Tied Overshot, Half-satin, or Bergman,  on an 8 shaft loom
  • Turned Twill, Patterned Double Weave, or Beiderwand, or Twill Lampas on a 16 shaft loom
  • Damask will require 20 shafts.

There are a ton of possibilities based on your choice of profile and structure,  we haven’t even begun to talk color, or choice of materials.

Because of the large size of the profile draft, it is not expected that the coverlet will require a border. The table portion of the design can function as a border if it is placed on both sides of the warp.
Primary Weaving Resources:

  • The Shuttle-Craft Book of American Hand-Weaving  Open Page 182
  • Foot-power Loom Weaving  Open Pages 96-97
  • The Book of Handwoven Coverlets  Open Pages 22-23
  • Of Coverlets: the Legacies, the Weavers  Open Pages 347-352

Additional Weaving Resources: (Use Resources search page for a complete listing)

    • A Basic Approach to Designing and Drafting Original Overshot Patterns  Open
    • American and European Handweaving Revised  Open
    • An Introduction to Turned Overshot  Open
    • Contemporary Approach to Traditional Weaves: Overshot and Summer and Winter  Open
    • Creative Overshot  Open
    • Creative Overshot  Open
    • Foot-power Loom Weaving  Open
    • Functional Overshot: Basic Source for Modern Fabric Design  Open
    • Handwoven Overshot Figures on 8 Harnesses  Open
    • Master Weaver Library, Vol. 7: Contemporary Approach to Traditional Weaves: Overshot and Summer & Winter  Open

Drafting Files for Download:

WIF File Download File - Profile Draft Only

Download a Profile Draft to use in your weaving software

WIF Files Download File

Download the FULL Weaving Draft to use in your weaving software.

Zip File Download File - No Software

Download a Zipped (Compressed) file with the Full Draft images of threading, treadling, and tie-up. Does not require you to have weaving software.

Project File Download File

Download a Double Bow Knot Shawl Project. Package includes both a PDF file with a complete weaving draft and a WIF for use in weaving software.

Rigid Heddle Band Weaving

latvian woven bandBeautiful bands with a thousand uses. Many cultures weave bands but few weave them with the style of Scandinavia and Latvia. The materials needed to weave these bands are simple and readily obtainable. double rigid heddleThere are groups dedicated to this type of weaving. The Braid Society in Europe and TWIST in the United States.

On the society websites you can find galleries of woven bands and instructions on how to get started weaving in this tradition. I also found a course being offered by the North House Folk School in Minnesota in May of 2013 that you may be interested in taking if you are in the area.

While the bands are traditionally woven on backstrap  looms they also can be reproduced on a standard loom if you happen to have one handy. sash upper The image on the left is  a Latvian design that I wove in a wide band on my AVL loom. The most important consideration  to remember is that a pattern thread is twice the thickness of the ground thread. A traditional belt, band or sash is often woven using wool. My experiment was woven in cotton.

I have also been able to weave this style of band on my Morgan loom without using a rigid heddle or tablet cards.

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I was able to make use of red and white beads to identify pattern threads and modified my draft to make weaving easier for me.

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Here is a copy of the draft that I made for weaving the belt.

BELT1.xlsx

Books:samibandweavingcover

 

 

Video Tutorials:

Weaving Library

double etoffe à navette copierThe Weaving Library website is a European version of the Handweaving.net  for silk and dobby weaving. If you are into looking at antique and modern silk weaving and  learning about textile analysis which included photos of swatches of the weaving drafts, this is the place. A good percentage of the material is presented in French and will required knowledge of european drafting methods, but there are areas in which you can find English translations. The site appears to serve historians, and commercial weavers alike.  The site offers some PDF files of original texts for download many of these are in French. My primary interest in the site is to continue to get inspiration for historic drawloom weaving.

A reference website for tribal textiles

tribaltextilesinfotribaltextiles.info is dedicated to sharing tribal textile information – particularly of a visual nature – with fellow enthusiasts as an on-line resource and to maximize the possibilities offered by the internet of assembling information in a dynamic, three dimensional, flexible and interactive format.

This site contains studies, travel reports photo galleries and bibliographies that can be used for research. What an amazing find! What lead me to the site was a Pinterest pin, rukaineedleweavingwhen I got there I was very confused because at first glance it appeared to be a text only site and I did not find the image on the Pinterest pin right away. After a little wandering around I was able to see the beauty and special weaving knowledge that it contains. If you click on the photo at the top of this post I’ll bring right to the photo gallery so that you can soak it in before wandering on your own.

Here is a link to the book  Textile Fabrics of Aboriginal Tribes in Taiwan showing work of the professor Yushan Tasi. You can see some of her work on display in a recent exhibit at the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines which is located on Yang Ming Mountain overlooking Taipei city. From this link you can learn more about the people who’s weaving the professor is studying. Read about Atayal tribal life. atayalwomanweaving

There is a movement to preserve this tribal weaving at Atayal Textiles Research Center, houses a ramie farm, a battery of designers, and several women who work together to display and sell textile handicrafts and accept orders from government agencies to promote the beauty of Atayal textile workmanship. The Center currently employs a total of eleven personnel, ranging from 16 to 67 years of age, all of whom come from the Atayal community along the Daan River.

The Book of Looms  shows a diagram of the Atayal loom and describes how it works.

Each piece of the loom is pictured individually and its purpose is explained.

Here is a video of the loom in action: