What's with the "d"s? "D" is for Doubleweave. This month's feature showcases two doubleweaves, which require only four harnesses.
The first doubleweave draft is a warp-faced fabric which was found in a poncho purchased in Venezuela. The original poncho was probably woven on a backstrap loom and only actually requires three harnesses, but this draft is set up for four.
The designing for this weave is all done in the warp. You can make one side plain and one side striped, or both sides with different stripe colors and layouts. The warp yarn should be heavier than the weft, which is barely visible and should be of a color that blends in to the warp colors. As with any double weave, sley your warp yarn double what its normal sett would be.
When the cloth is woven, the back layer warps will tend to migrate to the back, but may not completely do so until the fabric is finished. Wash the finished fabric with hand or machine agitation, as appropriate for your fiber, and hang to dry. After finishing, the back warps and the weft will be barely visible.You will be amazed at the result!
The draft for this weave is shown below (front and back view, uncompressed), or may be downloaded as a .wif file by right clicking here and choosing "Save target as..."
A triple weave 1/3 twill that is perfect for blankets, ruanas, or cuddly coating is found in Mary Black's New Key To Weaving. (cf. New York: MacMillan, 1978 edition, p. 198). Mary calls this an "Interlocking twill". In this weave, the warp yarn forms a core, and the weft crosses it front and back in 3/1 floats. This is a great way to stretch a yarn like alpaca, using it as weft over a soft wool warp. To finish, agitate "to taste" and then brush while wet to raise a lovely nap; then hang on a rack to dry.
You can use the same weft for both sides, or, using two shuttles, have one side one color and the other side a different color. It is not difficult to follow which side you are weaving, so if you want to get fancy you can do weft stripes on one side and plain on the other....
The draft for this weave is shown below, or may be downloaded as a .wif file by right clicking here and choosing "Save target as..."
