False Damask Projects

Day 106: When I was ready to warp the table loom with another round of false damask, I got a little carried away and measured off more than I'd really intended. The first banner (a sailboat, reversible) was a birthday present requiring timely shipping, so when I finished the weaving, I cut it off, re-tied the warp, and began the second project ("The Loom Room") with nothing particular in mind for the remaining warp. When I came to the end of it, I realized there was still a lot of warp left on the roller, so I began a third piece (the leaves and berries, right), but even after that piece was done, I still had warp remaining. I couldn't bring myself to throw it away or consign it to the thrums bag, but honestly, I was pretty tired of false damask at that point. It's a demanding weave with a lot of pickup and a lot of bending over sideways to be certain of a clear shed before throwing the shuttle. I decided to put a small area of pattern on each end of a fingertip towel, with the center portion worked in the twill. Now I just have to do the finishing work, turning/sewing rod pockets and twisting fringe. I think I'll take a break from false damask for a while. As much as I love the effect, it's a lot of work on a four-shaft loom.

Leaves, Nuts And Berries

Day 50: When I finished up the "Loom Room" damask and advanced the warp, I discovered I had wound on substantially more than I remembered. There was at least enough for two more short projects or perhaps one long one (possibly even more), and since I had nothing particular in mind, I dragged out a book of traditional cross-stitch designs and began looking for something which was under fifty squares wide. I wasn't having much luck until the little light bulb came on over my head with the realization that I could take a narrow pattern and turn it 90 degrees. The one I liked best wasn't quite wide enough, so I added a second skinny one on either side, and I was back in business. Weaving false damask is time-consuming and attention-demanding, just the sort of thing I need to fill out the spaces between easier projects. At this width, it takes roughly ten minutes to weave the four passes required for one line on the graph. As I cast about for a title for this photo, I was reminded of the book on comma usage, "Eats, Shoots and Leaves." This is "Leaves, Nuts and Berries," and no, I don't know where they were left.

In Case I Forget

Day 28: You know how it is with little old ladies. Just in case I forget where I am, I thought I needed a sign to remind me. Seriously, though...I have been thoroughly enjoying weaving false damask and had a little bit left over at the end of a project which I didn't want to go to waste. I've often thought about making a needlework sign for the Loom Room just because...well, because it would be somewhere else I could hang a piece of fiberart. Actually, I have very little of my own work on display. There are functional items in service, to be sure, like the runner on the harpsichord and a tablecloth in the kitchen, but most of the things I create go as gifts. Since I designed this piece over Día de los Muertos, the top will be finished off with a simple simulated (i.e., woven) papel picado.

Where's The Float?

Day 25: If you heard a loud boom and your seismometer registed a 6.7 about 8:30 last night, that was just me. I had gone in the Loom Room to put a few more rows on the current piece of false damask and had in fact added about twenty on top of the sixteen pattern throws I'd already woven when I spotted a pesky float back at the very beginning of the design. I check very carefully each time I make a pass with the shuttle to be sure this doesn't occur, but every now and then, one will slip past me. I usually spot them before it becomes a major undertaking to pick back my work to repair the error, but this time...this time, my attention had wandered. They're hard to see in any event, but if the light is a little slanted or dim, they can sneak in. So, given that mistakes are not allowed in this house, I began unweaving. I got about halfway before I began making mistakes in my corrections (it was bedtime, after all), so I retired for the night and finished the repair this morning. Now I'm back to the point when I discovered the error. The float has been expunged.

Attention To Detail

Day 338: Thanks to the magic of photo-processing software, I can show you both sides of my first piece of false damask weaving at once. You will notice that, unlike summer-and-winter weave, the pattern appears in exact reverse. The means to effect this is no easy process and requires an enormous amount of attention to detail at multiple times before a single pass of the shuttle can be made, but any two-colour design which can be charted on graph paper can be executed in this manner. Let me explain.

A single square on a graph represents four...yes, four!...passes of the shuttle. The checkerboard pattern on the top and bottom of the piece required 72 throws (24 for each block). To make a single throw, first the pattern threads must be selected. This is done by opening the shed which holds them, working a pickup stick through them to raise the desired set. When they are selected, a thin wire is passed through the resulting shed and the pattern shed is closed. Got it? You haven't made a shuttle pass yet. Now the wire is slid back to the reed, and the first actual weaving shed is opened. This raises the selected pattern threads as well as the ground threads. To be on the safe side and to make double-checking easier, the pickup stick is again threaded through the shed to ensure that it is entirely clear of unwanted ground threads. At this point, I examine each set of raised threads to be sure that there are three (not four!) in each grouping for the ground, and then the shuttle can be put through the shed. This is the first pass of four to be made in a similar manner in order to complete one line/square on the graph. Referring back, this means that each large checkerboard square requires repeating this process 24 times, since each check is six lines as graphed. Now that I'm more experienced with the technique, I can do a line in about eight minutes, i.e., each row of checkerboard squares takes about half an hour to complete. It is impossible to speed up the process any further. Don't make a mistake, because picking back is difficult, to say the least. A more efficient use of your time is to check, double-check and triple-check each shed to be sure the correct threads are raised. Some sheds are harder to clear than others.

Since making this piece, I've changed the design up a little to remove the bulge in the birds' tails and to add a tip to their wings. I'm two-thirds of the way done with a second version in blue with smaller checks top and bottom. I love the technique, slow though it may be.

Four-Shaft False Damask

Day 332: Until very recently, I thought it was only possible to weave false damask on an eight-shaft loom or a draw loom. Then I discovered a novel technique as explained by Sarah of Sarah Jackson Handwoven Designs on YouTube for executing it on a four-shaft loom. Her instructions there are not complete, and I was too lazy to try to figure out the tie-up (although I was fairly certain it was broken twill, as it turned out to be), so I bought her tutorial pattern through Etsy. I decided to weave it on my table loom in case it proved to be beyond me, but now after several inches of very steep "learning curve waste," I am pleased to say that my pattern is beginning to emerge. I did not use Ms. Jackson's design, instead drawing one of my own to suit the dimensions of the trial run.

Let me tell ya, this is a right royal pain in the neck to weave, but I haven't been this excited about a new technique since I discovered overshot some fifty years ago. Supplemental to your loom's four shafts, you will need a pickup stick, two lengths of music wire and the patience of a saint. If you are following a design on graph paper, each square requires four picks, three of which involve manually picking up the pattern threads. A wire is then passed through the lifted threads and pushed back against the reed, and when the shed is opened, the wire holds the pattern threads above the lower tier. The remaining shed (#3) utilizes the threads picked up and held on the wire from the previous pass. I call it "the easy shed," but easy or not, if I am not careful, I risk picking up unwanted threads. After discovering several inadvertent floats in my practice work, I added another step to Ms. Jackson's process: reinserting the pickup stick in the shed before sending the shuttle through. Even so, I have to check each shed to be sure it is clear. The design on the "back" of the fabric is the exact reverse of that on the "front."

Technically, this process effects the same shed sequence you would get if you were treadling an eight-harness loom. The four-shaft weaver uses pickup sticks/wires to create the same sheds which would be created by treadling. Obviously, this means it is a slower process because of all the manual manipulation required, but the main thing is this: IT CAN BE DONE! And you don't need an eight-shaft loom to do it. Did I mention "slow?" I'm getting faster. I can now complete four passes of the shuttle in something under ten minutes. That's real progress!