Weaver's Craft: the periodical for 4- to 8-shaft handweavers

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Back Issues of Weaver’s Craft


Volume 1


Issue 1 Vol 1, No 1 February / March 2000
Weaver's Craft, Vol. 1, No. 1 Designing with Colorways from Natural Objects
Look closely at a natural object and you’ll see a wide and often surprising range of colors. Basing a color palette on an object from the natural world offers a range of nuances and shadings that work beautifully together. Once you’ve matched as many colors as possible with skeins of embroidery floss, you can organize them in several suggested ways and weave eyeglass cases in monk’s belt.

Also included
bulletA weaver’s kit of indispensable tools
bulletTips for weaving on table looms

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Issue 2 Vol 1, No 2 April / May 2000
Weaver's Craft, Vol. 1, No. 2 Point Twills
The large twill family with its signature diagonal lines contains a surprising variety of patterns and textures. We look at simple four-shaft point twills treadled two shafts up and two shafts down. With four treadles tied up and a shuttle of colorful weft, you're ready to explore a fascinating group of easy twills in five colorful fiesta towels.

Also included
bulletHow to thread heddles
bulletSmiling selvedges and loose edge threads
bulletSkipped selvedge threads andfloating selvedges

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Issue 3 Vol 1, No 3 June / July 2000
Weaver's Craft, Vol. 1, No. 3

From Canvas Weave to Huck and Swedish Lace
Remember the three-thread floats at the center of twill diamonds in Issue 2? Now we'll develop those floats into a family of spot weaves and woven laces. A spot is merely a three-thread float in plain weave. Woven laces repeat these floats to cluster yarns into a group that separates itself from neighboring groups.

Projects include textured face cloths, towels, and placemats.

Also included
bulletMaking a notebook for yarn setts and sizes
bulletWeaving to measure with paper tape
bulletWeaving and sewing hems

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Issue 4 Vol 1, No 4 August / September 2000
Weaver's Craft, Vol. 1, No. 4

Warping from the Front of the Loom
Warping the loom from front to back is direct and fast and doesn’t require any extra equipment, such as lease sticks or raddle. The warp is first sleyed in the reed, then the heddles are threaded, the warp ends are tied to the back stick, and the warp is wound on through the reed and heddles. Follow several tips for avoiding common pitfalls. In Part One—Making the Warp, see how to wind and tie off a warp for front-to-back threading. In Part Two—Threading the Loom, see how to handle one or several yarn bouts without tangling.

The project is Potpourri Warp Pillows from a warp that’s designed in the reed to intermingle an assortment of different yarns.

Also included
bulletSome useful knots
bulletInterlocking the wefts at selvedges
bulletSecondhand yarn, trash or treasure?

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Issue 5 Vol 1, No 5 October / November 2000
Weaver's Craft, Vol. 1, No. 5

Warping from the Front of the Loom, Part Three: Winding On the Warp
A well-wound warp has two requirements. First, all threads must stay equal in length throughout the layers wound onto the warp beam. Second, the warp must be wound on as least as tight as the tension you set each time you bring the warp forward to weave. We discuss warping materials, lacing on to the front stick, checking for threading errors, and weaving the heading.

The projects are plain-weave towels designed in tartan-like plaids.

Also included
bulletTying on a new warp
bulletTying a weaver’s knot
bulletFinding order in the cross

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Issue 6 Vol 1, No 6 December 2000 / January 2001
Weaver's Craft, Vol. 1, No. 6

Weaving and Fulling Wool
Like our hair, wool fibers are covered with scales that overlap in one direction. When the fibers move, overlapping scales let the fibers travel forward but not back. Fibers moving through a fabric entangle, binding the collection of fibers more tightly the more they move. Fulling is a finishing process for wool fabric that uses moisture and agitation to shrink and thicken the cloth. We discuss weaving with soft, stretchy yarns because fabrics for fulling need to be woven loosely so that they are still soft after shrinking.

Projects include Origami Pillows, Swirl Hat or Tea Cozy, the Breakers Scarf.

Also included
bulletWorking with long, narrow warps
bulletCalculating take-up and shrinkage by percentage

Correction: Treadling for the Breakers Scarf
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Volume 2


Issue 7 Vol 2, No 1 Spring 2001
Weaver's Craft, Vol. 2, No. 1

Weaving Overshot
Overshot is a weave structure admirably suited to the four-shaft loom because of the almost limitless number of possible pattern variations. We discuss how to keep your place in long threading and treadling repeats, how to weave without a written treadling, making a weft drawdown to see the pattern on paper, coordinating floating selvedges with plain weave.

Projects include Sweet-Briar Beauty Runner and Place Mats, Drawstring Bags in Overshot Name Draft, and Bagatelle Place Mats.

Also included
bulletMake a drawdown to troubleshoot errors
bulletWho brought overshot coverlets to North America?
bulletDesigning name drafts
bulletHow to weave fast

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Issue 8 Vol 2, No 2 Summer 2001
Weaver's Craft, Vol. 2, No. 2

Gingham Kitchen Towels in Four Sizes of Checks
Wouldn’t it be great to have a design for towels so foolproof that you could weave them almost in your sleep? How about one using a familiar threading and standard tie-up that allows you to run up and down the treadles yet make different little patterns? Here are wonderful little textures and tips for easy and fast color changes. Although the towels shown are white plus a color, make yours in any color combinations you like.

Also included
bulletUsing different setts and yarn sizes
bulletAn easy way to dent 2, 1
bulletLittle helpers that make a difference

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Issue 9 Vol 2, No 3 Fall 2001
Weaver's Craft, Vol. 2, No. 3

Easy Inlays
Inlay is like embroidering on the loom. It's a motif set into a background fabric while you’re weaving. But weaving an inlay motif is often faster than embroidering. See how to position and weave inlays with the tails and turns on the back of the fabric. Using a space-dyed yarn gives color movement to each motif.

Projects include a scarf with inlaid star motifs, pillows with inlaid Vs and Xs, and an armoire set with tiny flowers and leaves.

Also included
bulletInlay with space-dyed yarn
bulletWeaving for cutting apart

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Issue 10 Vol 2, No 4 Winter 2001
Weaver's Craft, Vol. 2, No. 4

Designing a Double-Width Blanket
We often think of our loom’s weaving width as a limiting factor for the widest cloth we can weave. While textiles woven in panels and seamed together offer much room for creativity, double weave allows you to weave a fabric up to twice as wide as your loom, as long as you’re willing to give up half the shafts to the other layer.

Projects include a double-width plain-weave blanket on four shafts, a double-width twill blanket on eight shafts, a double-width baby towel with bias binding cut from a handwoven tubular striped fabric.

Also included
bulletBrushing fabrics by hand
bulletMaking twisted fringe
bulletInvaluable tips to weave a smooth fold

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Volume 3



Issue 11 Vol 3, No 1 Spring 2002
Weaver's Craft, Vol. 3, No. 1

Complementary Plain Weave
Have you wanted a technique to weave place mats heavy enough to lie flat and smooth on the table but with thin threads for a variety of delicate patterns? This four-shaft weave structure has two colors in the warp and one weft. The warp colors alternate between top and bottom of the fabric, which looks like plain weave on both back and front. Patterns are easily adapted from overshot threadings.

Projects include snack mats, place mats, bookmarks, sachets, and pin cushions.

Also included
bulletChoosing colors from a swatch chart
bulletMaking a ring of swatches

I copied information about the selvedges from the warp- face projects into the balanced projects by mistake. Correct text
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(There is only one issue in Volume 3; I skipped three issues to get caught up.)


Volume 4


Issue 12 Vol 4, No 1 Spring 2003
Weaver's Craft, Vol. 4, No. 1

Leno, Mexican Lace, Brook’s Bouquet, and Leno Motifs
Enlarging some of the openings between a fabric’s threads forms lace, and these laces are formed by manipulating the warp ends through twisting or wrapping. A pointed pick-up stick and small boat shuttle make twisting easier than you imagine.

Projects include a leno sampler striped valance for a kitchen window, lace sampler place mats (each one different), and designing your own lace motifs.
Also included:

Also included
bulletHems plus lace—an ideal combination

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Issue 13 Vol 4, No 2 Summer 2003
Weaver's Craft, Vol. 4, No. 2

Four-Shaft Twill Sampler
Compare a woven cloth to the black and white squares of a graphed drawdown and you’ll quickly realize the shortcomings of the graphed representation. As absolutely indispensable as drawdowns are, their rigid rows of squares are mocked by the yarns of the cloth, which nestle together according to their own rules. Explore the possibilities of four-shaft straight twill threadings by choosing from sixty-two treadling variations (you can design even more yourself), and weave a reference sampler or several Sampler Hand Towels, Guest Towels, and Cord Weave Scarf.

Also included
bulletUsing a basic tie-up for any shaft combination
bulletHow to prevent (or catch) mistakes

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Issue 14 Vol 4, No 3 Fall 2003
Weaver's Craft, Vol. 4, No. 3

Summer & Winter
Usually a multishaft weave structure, weaving summer & winter on four shafts provides the five texture variations on two threaded blocks. But with an easy and fast pickup technique, impressively large designs can be woven. Two techniques, the traditional method and the simple method, allow you to weave runners or place mats with Snowflake, Star, Deer, Quilt Block, Heart in Hand, and Medallion motifs. Other projects include Hopi Maze Place Mats to amuse and entertain waiting children and Peace Towels with borders reading either Peace or Whirled Peas (your choice).

Also included
bulletHow to fix a crazy shuttle pass

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Issue 15 Vol 4, No 4 Winter 2003
Weaver's Craft, Vol. 4, No. 4

Kitchen Dye Techniques
I confess: traditional methods of dyeing based on industrial methods cause my head to go to sleep. I am more at ease with simplified kitchen methods and common sense with a simple method that I can repeat easily from my notes. A good dye to start with is MX-fiber reactive dye for cotton (and other cellulose-type fibers). This method involves soaking small skeins of yarn in a dye activator, dyeing with small amounts of dye in clear plastic drinking cups, and placing the skeins in plastic sandwich bags to set the dye. Also shown is a simple way to get eight shades of the same color, from dark to light.

Also included
bulletPainting yarns
bulletWinding yarn on a niddy noddy
bulletDyeing with Kool-Aid

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Issue 16 Vol 5, No 1 Spring 2004
Weaver's Craft, Vol. 5, No. 1

Monk's Belt and Bias Cloth Strips
Cloth cut on the bias (45-degree diagonal) is stretchy and easy to mold. As pattern weft, it constricts to intersect the ground fabric and then flares out to provide coverage for floats. Bias doesn't ravel but forms short fringes on each side of the strip. As pattern weft in monk's belt fabrics, bias cloth strips can look like chenille after the fabric is washed. Several projects woven in monk's belt show the effects of sizing up both pattern and background yarns to make heavier fabrics. Projects include Cloth Strip Totes, Chenille Gridwork Pillows, Purse on a String, place mats, and a bias Striped Tea Cozy and Napkins.

Also included
bulletHow to cut bias from any width fabric
bulletUsing a triangle to weave balanced fabric

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Issue 17
Weaver's Craft, Issue 17

Twill and Basket Weave Combined
In the world of four-shaft weave structures, 2/2 twill and 2/2 basket weave are an admirable match because their float lengths are the same. They contrast beautifully whether in the warp or weft. The linear grid of basket weave sets off the diagonal movement of twill and its variations. Projects include Classic Twill Towels (shown in the cover photo), Twill Stripes Towel, Twill Mosaic Towels, and Twill Squares Towels.

Also included
bulletWhat Size Shall I Make My Towel?
bulletFinishing the Ends of Towels

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Issue 18
Weaver's Craft, Issue 18

Principles of Classic Overshot
Overshot is a wonderfully logical system of threading and treadling that's perfect for the four-shaft loom. Although historic textiles show many divergences from classic overshot, learning the principles enables you to weave and design beautifully symmetrical patterns. Design keys, graphic representations showing the order and length of pattern blocks, make it easy to compare overshot drafts from any source to highlight their commonalities and differences. Projects include Holiday Star Towels, quick-to-weave chunky towels with Star of Bethlehem overshot, Primrose Plaid Place Mats, and Nine-Patch Place Mats.

Also included
bulletFloating Selvedges for Truly Balanced Patterns
bulletComparing Overshot Threadings

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Issue 19
Weaver's Craft, Issue 19

Log Cabin and Where It Leads
Log cabin is a color-and-weave effect in plain weave with rectangular areas of horizontal or vertical lines. Ripsmatta or warp rep is a variation that spaces the warp ends closely together. The color interaction is enhanced by weaving one row with a very heavy weft and the next with a very fine weft. Shadow weave alternates dark and light yarns in a weave structure more elaborate than plain weave. Projects include Spring Showers Baby Blanket in plain-weave log cabin with space-dyed and solid-color yarns alternating, Bamboo Shoots Rep Placemats with a heavy string yarn weft, Chenille Scarf and White Scarf in an easy-to-treadle shadow weave, and Crocus in Snow Towels and Grape Harvest Runner in shadow weave.

Also included
bulletThe easy way to interlock two alternating wefts at the edges of plain weave
bulletTips for Keeping Your Place in Shadow Weave Treadlings

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Issue 20
Weaver's Craft, Issue 20

Danish Medallion and Accents for Plain Weave
With all the square intersections in woven fabric, handweavers treasure techniques that soften angularity with curves. An easy hand-manipulated technique, Danish medallion introduces graceful ovals with an embroidery-like clasp of groups of already woven rows. Learn the process of weaving Danish medallion with ovals as well as variations. Then try designing a few accent rows or scattered accents for plain-weave projects, such as guest towels. Projects include Spring Flowers Towels, Place Mats with Danish Medallion Ovals, Place Mats with Danish Medallion Stars, and Guest Towels.

Also included
bulletTips for inventing accent patterns using the twill treadles
bulletHiding yarn tails when stopping and starting weft yarns

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Issue 21
Weaver's Craft, Issue 21

Double Weave Pick-Up
Double weave is magic--at least it seems so the first time you experience it. The four-shaft loom you've been using to weave single-layer fabrics suddenly produces two layers of cloth, each of them in plain weave. Double weave pick-up exchanges the two layers in areas you control with a pick-up stick as you weave. Learn two easy step-by-step methods for working graphed designs in double weave pick-up. Projects include several Double Weave Mug Rugs and a Double Weave Checked Place Mat.

Also included
bulletHow to create your own graphed designs
bulletWarping double weave from the front of the loom
bulletEnd finishes for double weave


Issue 22
Weaver's Craft, Issue 22

Twill M's and W's
The hills and valleys of point twill provide many opportunities for creative adventures. The threading drafts often have sections that look like M's or W's. Easy to design, thread, and treadle, M's and W's twillls are fast to weave with one color in the warp and a contrasting color in the weft. Use the many treadlings shown or learn to design your own variations. Put on a long warp and weave each piece with a different weft color. Named after mountains in Oregon, projects woven with 8/2 unmercerized cotton include Black Butte Twill Towels, Broken Top Twill Towels, and Three Sisters Twill Towels. M's and W's twills are also perfect for scarves, such as the Bamboo Scarf project.

Also included
bulletOptimizing Floating Selvedges for Twills
bulletCentering Point Twill Repeats
bulletDesigning Easy Twill Treadlings


Issue 23
Weaver's Craft, Issue 23

Mock Satin Damask
Whether you call it Barleycorn (Gerstenkorn in German), spot weave (droppdräll in Swedish), Spot Bronson, or diaper (J. and R. Bronson's original designation), this float weave is simple to thread and weave, and it has many variations. The reversibility of the fabric and the ease of design, threading, and treadling make this weave structure very versatile. Traditionally, barleycorn was used for linen textiles, but it is wonderful for scarves, throws, and blankets as well. Projects include Yellow Barleycorn Mats or Towels with a diamond pattern, Green Barleycorn Mats or Towels with ovals, Blue Barleycorn Mats or Towels with circles and lacy blocks, and Wool Barleycorn Throw with the same pattern as the blue mats or towels, and an unusual Two-Color Barleycorn Scarf.

Also included
bulletSpecial Selvedges for Barleycorn
bulletArticle on Substituting Yarns

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