You can weave a narrow band over a piece of dense cardboard. Wind two rounds of each chosen colour round the cardboard and pull so that the cardboard bends, (Tie the end of the each round together). This makes it easier to insert the shuttle. Index filing cards make good little looms.

With one of the colours wound round a shuttle as pictured above, weave from right to left over one thread and under the next. When you reach the other side, weave back but this time choose the alternate path, under and over, to the previous one. The thread heddle loop, at the top of the picture (left) picked up all the double dark threads in one go so the shuttle could pass between the two sets of light and dark threads. Experiments appear at the front of this piece of over and under two threads repeated more than once.. Above that, is the result of using a dark weft thread in the shuttle. The best result , however, comes from the over one, under one pattern using a pale fawny pink yarn which produced a pleasing striped pattern with the dark blue, both yarns were silk and linen. Patterns produced automatically like this from the placing of the original threads are called colour and weave. There are many of them and they are very interesting to study. They can change in dramatic ways when the colours are varied.

The small heddle pictured here is French - modern ones are made of metal.

If you find you like weaving, use a rigid heddle to hold the threads and speed you up. This will allows each set of the threads ( the ones in the fixed holes or the ones in the slots) to part alternately (shed) and you can then weave with the bundle of threads tied to a hook and the other end tied to your belt.

You can weave a tube by weaving in one direction only passing the shuttle across the back of the work, giving a tug to close the tube and weaving the next pass .Try with alternate colours in pairs - a variation will mean you can spot if you miss a thread.

The library can order for you The Weaving,Spinning and Dying Book by Rachel Brown which is informative about techniques

 

Begin Braiding is based on original material prepared by Felicity Tregear.

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