It is also possible to weave plain weave at twice the sett by treating the ground thread as one warp thread and the pair of whip threads acting together as the adjacent warp thread, pulled either to the left or the right. It doesn't make much difference if they're pulled to the left or the right, except when they change sides a diagonal is created.
It's a fairly simple structure related to leno, only without the hand manipulation.
The magic with gauze happens when the gauze and plain weave areas are mixed and active (think high twist yarn) and passive threads are used for the weft. The shrinkage should be more even in the gauze sections where the weft is gripped and more chaotic in the looser plain weave areas and with an open sett more extreme.
Searching books and the internet I found some images of amazing textiles by a handful of textile artists (Noriko Matsumoto, Fiona Crestani, Ann Richards) but nothing on technique. Evidently it's a "black art" so I was immediately attracted!
If there is much changing of sides of the whip threads in the plain sections I imagine the take-up will be greater than the ground threads, so I will put the latter on a second warp beam. I'm going to be using linen for the warp with a sett of around 5 epi (for each group of three threads) and a section at a wider 2.5 epi just to see what is possible. I ll also use a wide variety of different weft yarns.
In order that I can do a lot of experimentation on a single warp, I devised a tie up for 4 blocks to produce many combinations of gauze and plain weave (see below). I should be able to create horizontal and vertical seersucker, checkerboard and window type patterns.
I had hoped to use my spring loom for the first weave but having thought about how the bead works on the whip threads, I ve realised that the system only works with a Jack loom, where the raised whip thread is at a greater tension than it's partner in a three thread group and is thus able to pull it to its side of the ground thread. With a countermarche loom the raised thread is at the same tension as its partner because that thread is automatically lowered by the treadling. I ll have to use a tableloom as both the spring and megado have countermarch actions.
This video shows how the beads deflect to either side of the ground threads.
First section of weaving - weft is stable in the gauze sections but easily moved in the plain weave sections at this sett.
Firstly, Gauze weaving is not for the faint hearted! The shed is very small and mostly not positioned on the shuttle race, a long and low profile shuttle helps. Particularly if using blocks, the tension even with a second beam can go all over the place during the weaving. I didn't have a second beam for this sample but as the warp was only about 3m it was just about controllable.
Linen may not have been a good choice for the warp as it proved to be a sticky, which resulted in the whips sometimes getting hung up on the ground threads.
The beads I chose were 4mm diameter with 2mm holes, bigger beads (5-6mm) would have been easier to hold whilst threading and less prone to occssionally getting stuck. Also be sure the beads are bigger than the dent spacing in the reed, as they occasionally migrate!
To begin and end your weaving it is possible to produce a denser plain weave by weaving plain weave and treadling to keep the whip threads on the same side of ground threads for each pick - beat hard.
The sample with numerous weft yarns and block patterns before wet finishing.
After the wet finishing the results! The blocks of plain and gauze didn't really work. They weren't discernable except that the plain weave areas disintegrated into a bit of a mess. When I used plain weave but alternated the side which the whip threads were on the structure was slightly more stable.
The most successful areas were where I used all gauze. Alternating areas of high twist yarn and regular yarn, or just using high twist yarn alone, produced a lovely stretchy fabric. The wider sett was a bit too fishnet for my taste.
brushed alpaca/silk/mohair (pink) alternating with highspun wool - narrower sett on the right more successful
the green in the middle is a mop cotton and on the right a variegated tensel 8/2, the different setts are evident as is the draw in created by the high twist wool used with the pink mohair
doubling the high twist wool with a passive novelty yarn creates an interested texture as after the wool shrinks the novelty warn has to escape in little loops
