This fall I am teaching pile weaves at Callanwolde. I have never woven pile weaves…. how did this happen?
We had a bunch of old 8/2 yarn that was no longer strong enough for warp. Unfortunately some students thought the yarn chicken gods would be with them when they opted to use it (right color) and then had to re warp (wrong yarn). At the same time, I had purchased an electric I-cord maker to make I-cord for my CSM sock puppet tangent. You know where I am going. I converted all of the weak 8/2 into I-cord. We have cakes and cakes of it. Now, what should we do with it?
Answer: Use it for weft. How about loops? OK.
The class will use that I-cord for a supplemental weft where loops are formed around dowels. I will also try it for supplemental warp (spoiler you really need a 6 dent reed for this). Lastly we will do a more traditional supplemental warp approach with doubled 8/4 for loops on the top and bottom of the cloth.
Fast forward. Here’s my sample of the supplemental I-cord weft. I used 8/4 cotton in the warp set at 12 EPI and 8/4 cotton as the ground cloth weft. I tried 2 different dowel sizes – bigger first, then settled on 1/4″, changed colors, created some relief patterns by skipping dents and used the I-cord as plain weave.
Pretty cool and crazy fluffy – looks like a field of flowers among other fields of green to me. Here’s a video of the process of pulling loops up and over the dowel. The gaps are wide enough that my fingers worked best but I could see that a tighter sett might make a crochet hook something that would be useful. After pulling up the loops, beat the dowel in and weave 2 picks of plain weave ground cloth. Head back the other way with the I-cord and repeat. A cool effect is that the slant of the loops, at least on the loom, shows the direction of the loop as it is formed on the dowel. These loops nest in a nice, subtle pattern way. Will that remain after washing? We will see.
A few important considerations:
- I-cord unravels really easily so when changing colors or adding or ending new I-cord, make sure to thread the end yarn through all of the loops to keep it from unraveling. Ask my how I know…
- Bury the ends as usual as long as you remember to do the first item.
- You must make sure to beat it in hard. We will try to shrink it a bit to keep the weave tight but if it starts out too loose, it is a losing game.
- Pay attention to the overlap of the ground cloth (brown) and supplemental weft. Be consistent.
- It is easier to pull the loops a bit away from the fell but make sure to adjust the edge tension as you bring the dowel rod back to the fell.
- Weave the ends in on the back.
Changing colors is a little like any sort of overlay weaving technique. Keep a little ball of yarn at the design site and make sure the ends are secured at the end of each pick. I decided to carry the main I-cord (green) across. You can see the areas that I skipped the loops to create some relief to either side of the pink.
