The Weaver's Crate
The Weaver’s Crate is a collection of yarns and fibres to inspire experimentation and discovery. Each crate contains a selection of colours and textures that the Gather team works with to create our seasonal lookbooks. These fibres inspire us in our own weaving, and we are sure they will inspire you, too!
Crackle Weave
There are lots of reasons why we are excited to be featuring crackle weave this spring! Crackle is an incredibly versatile style of weaving from a design perspective, allowing you to weave anything from intricate diamond patterns to chunky geometric shapes. But even though it can create some pretty fancy designs, crackle makes cloth that has substantial body and stands up to wear and tear. Crackle has us dreaming of beach towels, picnic blankets, decorative throws, and--of course--sewing up some beautiful tops from handwoven cloth.
A weaver and a printmaker walk into a bar...
We wish. Last week, Brianna Tosswill and I sat down in our separate studios to have a chat about A Tactile Notion, and more broadly how our creative practices overlap.
Understanding Sett: The tools you need to be confident choosing the best sett for your next project
“Sett” is one of those fabulous old-fashioned weaving words that might seem strange at first, but refers to something pretty simple: how many strands of warp yarn there are in a single inch of weaving width. Because sett describes how many warp ends there are in an inch, it is commonly expressed using the term “ends per inch” or “epi” for short. A project with a sett of 20 epi, for example, has 20 warp ends in each inch of weaving while the project is on the loom.
How to Improve Your Shed: Practical solutions for improving a small (or non existent) shed
You’ve done all the hard work of setting up warp and dressing your loom. You sit down and press a treadle (or flick a table loom lever) to throw that satisfying first pick and… nothing happens. The threads just sit there. Or maybe they open a little, but certainly not enough to throw a shuttle through comfortably. You, my friend, have a small (or missing) shed.
How to Beat: Improving accuracy and consistency when weaving
‘Beating’ is one of those weaving words that sounds much more dramatic than it really is. Each time a weaver throws a line (or ‘pick’) of weft, they need to push that weft into place to make a clean and even grid. This is called beating the weft. On a multi-shaft loom, you beat by swinging the beater bar towards you. On a rigid heddle loom, you use the rigid heddle reed to beat the weft. Some styles of weaving, like tapestry weaving and some rug weaving, require a special tool called a hand beater, which is a heavy wooden comb used for heavy beating. The tools are different, but the goal is the same: to get each pick of weft exactly where it needs to be.
