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How do I do this?
In an article by Madelyn van der Hoogt describing her initial experience with twill, she includes a photo of a tea towel in false damask with a bunny design in the lower portion. The towel was woven by Alison Irwin. How is this done? (The whole towel, but especially the bunny design).
The closest thing for the rabbit design I can find in my small weaving library is on pages 219 -225 of Mary Black’s, Key to Weaving, (2nd revised ed) on “Finvav (aka Takana, lastakudos, or stick weave). (Sorry, don’t know how to get the special alphabetic characters.) This process requires 2 light threads alternating with 2 dark threads in the warp. So I presume this is a double-faced weave with the light on dark on one side and dark on light on the other. But this is listed as a 4 shaft weave, while the false damask is 8 shaft. Does false damask also yield two sides? Could this towel be brown on the other side (for the main body).
Any help on directions on how to make something like this would be greatly appreciated.
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11 Replies
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This might have been done on a drawloom (that’s how I would do it). You could also do something like this with doubleweave pickup. Check out Jennifer Moore’s book to learn more about doubleweave pickup.
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I haven’t looked up the references so I’m half talking out of my hat, but one of my first weaving teacher’s specialties was Finn Weave (which would translate to finvav) and it was …essentially? a form of? straight up? double weave pick up. Very labourious but you can get amazing results from just four shafts! (Or a rigid heddle, right, @carly-jayne?)
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I know in theory how to do this, but not the precise details. It’s mock damask, which I believe is a 1/3 or 3/1 broken twill. Since any 1/3 or 3/1 weave will be warp or weft dominant on each side of the cloth, you can use pick-up and graph in front of the heddle to “switch” the warp or weft dominance in a single shed. For example, for shed one you will raise shafts 2 and 3, pick up the pairs of threads represented in the graph image, lower all sheds, then lift shaft one with the pickup stick or wire pushed back to the reed. Where the pickup stick or wire is holding shafts 2 and 3, you now have areas of 3/1 (shafts 1,2,3 raised) twill pattern woven in a 1/3 (shaft 1 only raised) ground and that makes the pattern. You then repeat this process 3 more times completing the full lift and pick up sequence before moving to the next row of graph squares
I can do this with a 1/2 twill, but it’s the same concept. It’s fun. It’s slow! -
Hum. Thanks Carly. That does sound like what this is, but I’m having trouble visualizing how to do this. I’ll just have to try it to figure out. But, I think this is done by alternating 2 dark threads with 2 light threads in the warp which allows for pattern on ground. So that means that the body of the towel in this image is white on one side and brown on the other. Am I understanding this correctly? And false damask is usually done on 8 shafts not four, correct? I’m not sure what the implications are for the 4 shed sequence.
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This is one color (white) for warp and a second color for weft, I found some weaving tutorials under mock damask, which is different than false damask which is 8 shafts.
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Thanks, I’ll look that up.
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This looks similar to drafts that Sarah Jackson sells on etsy, but hers are for dogs, sheep, etc. She uses mock satin damask pick-up.
This is one of her drafts:
etsy.com
This Patterns & Blueprints item by SarahHJackson has 166 favorites from Etsy shoppers. Ships from United States. Listed on Oct 3, 2023
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I really appreciate everyone’s help. After looking at a couple of you-tube videos and a blog post, I did figure out how to do the mock damask pickup on four shafts. I also discovered that pick up for FinnWeave, double weave and mock damask are different procedures. I was trying to make a small hand towel for my daughter with image of 4 little chihuahuas. This took me a while to figure out, but here it is on the loom – need to do the rest of the body of the cloth.
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Wow! Looks like a fun project and you captured the dogs perfectly.
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Your weaving is very impressive. You started out not knowing what/how to do the shapes and figured it out. They are lovely. Congratulations.
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Thanks
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