Doubleweave experiments

I started thinking about doubleweave. Usually one weaves two (or more) layers of plain or sometimes twill weave and through altering the tie and up, treadling and number of shuttles, one can play with which layer is on top and whether they are joined to form a single double cloth, a tube, two separate layers, etc. But what would happen if the two layer were completely different weave structures? What if they used different yarns, at different setts? 

After some experimenting on fibreworks, I decided to mix plain cloth on one layer with a classic swedish "mosquito" lace on the other. The plain cloth was in 8/2 cotton, whilst the lace was in 20/2 both at 24 epi. Because of the way the weaving progresses in doubleweave with alternating picks in each layer, I figured that the weft density of the plain weave (24ppi) would control the density of the swedish lace to the same number of ppi. With the much finer 20/2 yarn this give an even, open weave. 

The resulting two layers are tied together in the weave at intervals and I hoped this would create a transparent lace cloth with windows to the plain cloth beneath. Rather like a stained glass window.

I used up lots of stash to make a multi coloured plain cloth, but kept the swedish lace white.

warped at 48epi combined

fabric on the loom, the windows in the lace aren't evident until the fabric is washed and finished

the finished cloth

I think there are lots of possibilities with this method, monksbelt springs to mind as another suitable weave structure for one of the layers. One could also fill the pockets formed between the layers with 'objects' as the weave progresses, sealing them in forever once the layers are woven together at intervals. A project for another day.

 

Rug

I needed a new runner for the bathroom which I had recently refurbished and decided to weave something in diversified plain weave. The structure seemed a good choice for bold pattern, though I haven't heard of it being used for rugs. There are some notes on the structure and example drafts in Strickler's "8 shaft pattern book".

She says that ideally the pattern and background threads should have a difference in diameter of 5-6 times. This seemed a lot, but eventually I choose 8/2 cotton for the background and a mini-mop from lankava.fi to achieve the difference. Usually rugs are woven in wool to be hard wearing but in the bathroom the frequent wetting and need to machine wash made the cotton the more natural choice.

Strickler also recomends that each set of pattern and neighbouring background threads on each side be sleyed through a single dent in the reed, advice I followed.                         

I should probably have done some sampling to test the structure but as is often the case I was impatient to get going.

There didn't seem to be any tension problems warping the 8/2 and mini mop on the same beam (I only have one in any case) and during the weaving there wasn't ny noticeable take up differences.  The main issues I noticed were firstly that it was difficult to beat the mini mop hard enough to get the density I was after (subsequently I have realised that the overhead beater on my old loom effortless beat very hard because of its weight, on the spring II I often need a double beat) and secondly that the background threads had a tendency to slip over or under the thicker minimop, which for me destroyed the effect I was after in the fabric. It would have been much better if in fact the background threads had been in different dents to the minimop to help keep them in place. Whether they would have slipped around during finishing I don't know. A generally denser sett for warp and weft may have helped.

The finished rug is pleasant enough and functional, if a bit too drapey. A reminder to always sample first!