Welcome to the FOURTH lesson !

B you know everything really important to help you weave your first fabrics:
longer pieces of fabric, an easy weave for a special gift or for an item you want to use, a decoration (I show a few ideas for those in the weaver's shed behind the wall hanging)

In the last lesson I wrote about the pattern you weave on your frame (or loom), and I mentioned that you can weave with different things; it should be yarn if you want to wear or use your fabric, but decorations can be woven using other things, and sometimes you can weave on objects other than your waeving frame or loom I showed you in the earlier lessons.

This fourth lesson will encoureage you to try out other patterns. Then in lesson 5 come two ideas for making the basic weaving faster. That will be useful if you want to weave a lot and often as a leisure activity or for school projects.

You remember the kitchen towel or hankie from your first lesson? They showed you the first and easiest weaving pattern: "over-under-over-under".
This pattern is called 'linnen weave'. It is used for basic fabrics which can look very nice because they were woven with different coloured yarns or different types of yarn, and very often they are printed to make them look really good.
I'm sorry I can't show you fabric woven with different types of yarn.

Fabric in the lin weave are often printed to make it look attractive. Here is a photo of a towelling kitchen towel. The print (flowers, hearts and a border of 'arch' shapes) would have been expensive to weave into the fabric. The customer does not want to pay a fortune for a towel used to wipe his hands on.	front of the towel: strong colours revers almost no colours as they are not printed through the fabric
linnen weave, fabric for a table cloth	The stripes are woven: the weaver used differently coloured yarns to weave with. The colours can be seen on the front and the reverse.

And now I'll show you another pattern you can weave quite easily and which looks good.

To see it, have a look at some jeans, one of those really solid blue jeans.
It's not easy to see all the threads. The weft looks very fine and close together, and the warp is not at all easy to see. It looks as if very fine stripes go along at an angle. This fabric is less soft, does not stretch easily and moves about less easily because the threads have not much space between them to move about in! That is important for jeans because they were invented as a very resistant work trouser.
J Discovery 13 : When warp and weft threads are close together the fabric might be stiffer and stretch less
& The pattern seen on the old 'blue jeans' is called TWILL It looks as if the threads make fine lines that run at an angle.

The easiest twill to use is the Two-One pattern: that means the weft goes OVER 2 and then UNDER 1 warp thread.
Here is my drawing of this 2-1 twill:         
I'll try to "write" how this pattern is woven ~~~ and then I'll show it you.

push the suttle with the weft over the 1st warp thread and under the 2nd. then outwards to go over the 3rd and 4th.
this is the finished first woven row.	Remember to continue this special twill 'rythm' from one row to the next.
You see that in my drawing I finished the row 'under' the last warp thread. So: I can continue my weaving 'over 2' when I start the next row.
After a few rows you will see the pattern of this weave: a 'thin line' of warp threads and a 'wider band' of weft threads which are much longer, and they all seem to go upwards at an angle
And this is what it looks like ............

Because the twill pattern is not as regular as the linnen weave, you will see that at the end of every row there is a different number of warp threads to cross over or just the one to pass under. This can make it a little complicated to remember just what to do for the next row. To avoid problems I have this table for the 2-1 twill in my weaver's work book, it is a simple description with drawings.I think it might help you, too.

	the last row finishes OVER 1 warp thread?	the next row starts under the 1st warp thread --- and then you continue in the pattern
	the last row finishes OVER 2 warp threads?	the next row starts under the 1st and 2nd warp thread --- and then the twill pattern continues with 2 over
	the last row finishes UNDER the last warp thread?	the new row starts over 2, then goes under 1 --- and continues in this twill pattern

& And again, to repeat this important thought: when you weave the weft thread over more than 1 warp thread; and you weave OVER MORE warp threads than you weave under, you are weaving A TWILL pattern.

And for the pleasure of twill I show you another very nice pattern. Have a really good look at this animation.

The pink lines on the woven design show you the pattern. It is called "Herring bone pattern".
to weave this you must concentrate well, and to help you please note on a piece of paper what you have just woven, every time you finish a row. After 20 or 30 rows you will have all the movements in your memory, and will see just where you have arrived in this pattern. And fairly soon you can weave this pattern without looking at your notes. To start this pattern you weave 4 rows in the 2-1 twill.

 

Make sure the 'angled'(I shall use the word 'diagonal' for this direction) band of the weft threads and the narrow line of the visible warp thread, are really going off diagonally in all the rows! Row 5 you weave like row 3 Row 6 is just like row 2 And then row 7 is like row 1

Then you continue...... because row 7 is like row 1, you weave row 8 like row 2, and row 9 is like row 3 You see that row 10 has to be like row 4 And then you have to go on. Row 11 = row 3, row 12 = row 2, row 13 = row 1, row 14 = row 2.... You can see that the rows are repeated after a while, and that you are weaving wide zigzag bands of weft and narrow zigzag lines of on single warp thread.

& when you weave a twill which has the long weft threads going off towards one side of the weaving frame, and then the rows go back in the same way towards the other side until they are arranged like at the beginning of your "weave pattern", AND you continue this pattern exactly , then you are weaving the HERRINGBONE PATTERN..
You need to concentrate on this pattern, make sure you watch the ends and beginnings of rows.

When you manage this pattern without problems, try weaving the next one, just for fun (don't forget to write all these things into your weaver's work book!)
What you have learned about the twill will help you to discover other twill patterns, experiment and write down what you have found. You will create some really nice designs like a true artist! And you will also 'discover' this Two-One twill.
I'm writing it                      - | - - | - - | - - | - - | -   over under over over under .....
to show you:                     - - | - - | - - | - - | - - |   over over under over over .....
now you understand!       - | - - | - - | - - | - - | -   over under over over under .....

If you use your warp in a different colour to your weft, you will see a very nice zigzag pattern in your fabric! And to see this even better, use a thicker yarn for your warp than for your weft.

Now you can really get weaving, and experimenting. And your little weaver's workbook helps you to do your favourite patterns again.
You concentrated, watched and worked carefully, you were patient, made notes. Now you need to continue weaving because you will get faster the more your mind and your muscles remember the different movements and what your weaves look and feel like. Soon you will discover that you won't need to look at your work notes; you will be able to spot errors AND know how to undo them, and weave correctly.
Then you can experiment also with different types of yarn, alternate different weave patterns, change colours, and find out what your fabric looks like when you beat down a little harder or only very softly.

I think you will really enjoy discovering and working. And if you weave something you don't like, just take it off the frame and glue into your weaver'S workbook: today you might not like a pattern, in a few months you will know why you disliked it and know how to improve it, and very often you will find that a few months later you will have a project that will look good with that unusual pattern!

If after all these lessons you are really keen to continue weaving, then the next two lessons will show you how to weave the basic linnenweave faster.

Go to lesson FIVE!