Up, Down Or Both

Day 66: When weaving a Scandinavian-style band, pattern threads must be manipulated with the fingers or a pickup stick to bring the design to the surface. In the simplest form, these threads will either be lifted from the lower layer or pushed down from the upper, but in more complex bands, the pattern requires both "selecting" and "deselecting." In this band, the pattern threads are red. The border design in lavender, green and yellow is entirely loom-controlled, i.e., the threads were brought through the heddles in a manner which places them in the proper position in the two different sheds. They take care of themselves. These are doubled to give more volume to the pattern. Treating each pair as a single thread for simplicity of explanation, they are separated from one another by two dark blue ground threads ("ground" as in "background"). The ground threads must be kept in their natural shed, lifted or lowered as the case may be. We are only concerned with the red threads, of which there are 11 in this design. When Shed 1 is opened, pattern threads 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 are on top. However, in this step, I need to select threads 1 and 11 from the lower layer, and to deselect thread 6 from the upper layer in order to have a shed containing 1, 2, 4, 8, 10 and 11. Threads 3, 5, 7 and 9 are already in the lower layer. Inserting my fingers in the newly created shed, I can then pass the shuttle through the gap. In this manner, intricate patterns and even lettering can be made with the pattern threads, with the caveat that each one must be tied down by the weft every seventh throw (preferably every fifth) to eliminate long floats which might snag if applied to a garment.