Category: Unusual Weaves

In the last couple of months, there’s been a boom of new woven-loop potholder designs created using double-weave techniques.

While I’m sure there are many ways of making these charts, I’ve stumbled onto one simple technique which I’m currently using to make double-weave charts, and wanted to share it here.

Start with any of the templates below, which form simple double-weave structures with a light layer in front and a dark layer in back. (The first has 14×14 white loops and 13×13 dark; the other two are all 14×13 or 13×14.)

Then go through and in any circled space you can bring the back layer to the front by coloring it dark and flipping the weave direction in that spot from | to —, or from — to |.

Then try weaving it to see how it turns out when you take it off the loom!

There might be a few surprises, but so far this technique has been pretty reliable… give it a try and let us know how it works for you.

And if you have a different technique for creating double-weave designs that you’re willing to share, I’d love to hear about it!

P.S. In case the above notes are not sufficiently clear, here’s a comment I posted to a recent Facebook thread, along with the quick sketch that illustrates using this template to make a chart with three black blocks on a white field:

if you leave the template exactly as I uploaded it, you’ll get a potholder that is light on the front and dark on the back. But if you go through and pick some specific areas, and for each circle in that area you color it black and change the direction of the weave marking, you now have a new chart that will come off the loom as white with some black areas. 

In this version, the white areas serve as the background and the black areas are the figure drawn on top of it — but of course when you are weaving it you could switch the colors around and use dark colors for the white spaces on the chart and vice versa.

In the example below, I’ve colored in some of the circles and also (very messily) tried to indicate that the weave in those circles should change from over to under or vice versa — and when woven you should get a white potholder with three black spots on it — and the back will be black with three white spots.

Piglet worked a 19-peg version of our “Indented Bendlets” pattern, and while she was doing so identified a few places where the 27-peg chart included some needlessly-long floats. The corrected charts have been posted to our website and are attached below.

She describes the resulting potholder as “thick, but not too plush,” and “flexible but not floppy.” She also says it is “noticeably flat and even. Very stable. This stability is tied to the way the weaving pattern is established along the major diagonals.”

I’m really happy with how this works up, and the subtle difference in plushness between the narrow and wide stripes that develops when you take it off the loom.

This is another one of those designs that looks different while it’s on the loom — the little spots of color inside each of the contrasting boxes pulls down when you bind off, leaving a solid-color diagonal stripe.

Charts attached and on our home page as usual.

Let’s get ready to weeeeeeeeeave!!!! Today’s new fabric is a solid winner, with lots of color work potential. Inspired by the recent 2-float twill tumbling boxes, this pattern combines 3-floats over tabby squishy boxes, that create an amazing 3-layer fabric, thick, flat and bendy, with little bias. It draws up very small and evenly. The surface is flat, making this great for coasters and trivets. It would be great on cast iron, as it is thick yet not stiff.

I wove the first version in lavender and hydrangea alternating boxes. The color potential became clear after taking it off the loom, when the tabby-like section formed by the box centers was covered by the floats on the surface, forming a basketweave illusion.

For the second version, I highlighted the color-hiding and surface display by making a stairstep of alternating daffodil and tigerlily on the surface, with hidden white centers. It uses the same weaving pattern, with a different color threading.

Experiments in classical weave structures continue with Overshot!

This fabric has a base plainweave (tabby / over-under across each row), with a design pattern overlaid on it, created by rows with long floats. The design pattern appears to float on the surface.

This one is adapted from the Swedish Halvdräll style, in honor of which I chose flax and willow Harrisville loops. The result is textured, cushy, with tabby sections drawn up into pillow layers by the alternating longer floats on their surface.

To highlight the structure for my (and your, since I remembered to take photos!) understanding, I wove starting with the base tabby layer, using all the column pegs, and every other (even) row peg.

Having established that plainweave fabric, I then took my dozen willow loops, and wove them into the base fabric according to the pattern. You may observe that adding the new loops forced floats where there had previously been simple over/unders in the columns. Those smaller floats help pinch the longer floats in the rows into patterns on the surface, and pull the fabric along their length.

For the last 2 rows (top and bottom), instead of the design pattern as charted, I decided to plainweave (tabby / over-under across the row) both rows, to flatten the edge for a more attractive bindoff and function a bit like a selvage. (Chart update pending.)

I am curious if I could shift the plainweave rows now at the top & bottom of the entire chart (1 and 27) to be in between color row changes (new rows 9 and 19, respectively), so the surface floats could be pinched towards each other in 2×2 bundles (like the center section), instead of the 1x2x1 pinch we are getting in the top and bottom sections right now…

I mentioned to a weaving friend that I was working on overshot today… and they suggested *gauze*. And we laughed heartily… And then I did it. Lol. Who’s laughing now?

I am (as ever!) surprised by how it came off the loom. It is suitable as a light-duty potholder, and would make a great coaster. You could even sew it onto something (around 3 edges) as a patch pocket! It gently bulges. Another amazing fabric, courtesy our ancestors in string technology.

Ok, so what is gauze, you ask? Wikipedia is pretty solid here:

In technical terms “gauze” is a weave structure in which the weft yarns are arranged in pairs and are crossed before and after each warp yarn keeping the weft firmly in place. This weave structure is used to add stability to fabric, which is important when using fine yarns loosely spaced. However, this weave structure can be used with any weight of yarn, and can be seen in some rustic textiles made from coarse hand-spun plant fiber yarns.

— Excerpt from Wikipedia: “Gauze” (CC-By-SA)

Because of the crossings, I knew my warp threads would tighten up significantly, and also required more space between them, so I decided to use half as many weft loops, on alternating pegs. The last skipped row looked like it would bind off too loosely, to my eye, so I added another weft row on the last row. The result would vary depending how many weft loops were used.

Hopefully the photos give you an idea of how to work the twists. Because we are using potholder looms, with closed loops, we could experiment with putting all the twists in the same direction, introducing a skew in the final fabric that might be interesting. (Also, having done these twists makes me want to try sprang as a technique, lol.)

Oh!! This one is delightful! Such fun to touch. And also easy to weave, with the same pattern shifting across each row. The texture on this one pulls to the inside of the fabric, leaving a remarkably flat surface, good for trivets and coasters. The back side is deeply waffled, or honeycombed. The front is a flat tiled surface. The potholder as a whole is small and thick.

New fabric *boggle*. Waffle weave!!! It is RIDICULOUS. IT WAFFLES.

The “Belgian” version is crazy thick. The “Breakfast” version is modified for flatness. The “Liége” version has smaller pockets.

These would make an excellent trivet. The pockets insulate and separate the base of the hot dish from the table finish, so you don’t end up steaming your trivet onto the surface.

Shown below in traditional size, these patterns are available in both 27-peg and 19-peg charts.

Belgian Waffle

Breakfast Waffle

Liége Waffle

Here’s another interesting weave that changes when you take it off the loom: “Pierced Lattice.” Like two-two twill, this produces a thicker and smaller potholder than a plain tabby weave would, but the pattern is unique.

Available in both 27-peg and 19/18-peg sizes, as well as a three-color variation.

Okay, remember the other day, when I said “when is a potholder not a potholder” and showed you a pretty fabric that looked like fish scales but was *not* a heavy-duty potholder?

*THIS* is the heavy-duty version. 3-color fishscales, surprisingly easy to weave. Please don’t be daunted by the chart. Once you get going, the pattern establishes itself and it is very clear on each row what you want to do. Texturally, the fabric is remarkably flat and evenly flexible, despite its thickness, with very little bias.

In my sample, I used black, pewter, gray and white. I also bound off so that the scales lay sideways, as they would on a fish in the water. The pattern also bears a strong resemblance to blooms and hearts. If you work in green with pastels, or reds/pinks/whites, you would have a lovely garden or multiple hearts.

Threading in both directions follows an ABACAD squence starting from the top-left or bottom-right corner. Weaving switches between rows of over-2/under-1 and rows of over-3/under-3, shifting by one warp on each row.

Fish Scales is a *very* interesting fabric. Before we begin, please note, this is a *light-duty* potholder. Use for trivets, bowl cozies, other flexible fabric cushion-y choices. DO not risk burning yourself (or your gift recipient!!) on hot heavy cast-iron.

The surface is notably dimpled with slight puffiness. The fabric is flat and feels slightly stiff, more like a tabby (over/under across the row) than a twill. It has the flexibility of twill, in all cardinal directions.

I could not restrain myself to <color>-and-white for this one. I needed to see the fish scales in pewter and silver. Aren’t they lovely!? If you work in red or pink, you would also get lovely hearts.

The pattern is extremely regular. Every odd row repeats 2/1/2/1 etc. across the row. Every even row repeats 2/2/1/1/ across the row. Use the chart to keep track of the shifts from one pattern row to the next.

See Also:

• Mid-Weave Corrections to see some mistakes fixed along the way.
• Purse, to see this folded and sewn into a small container.