Gather Textiles Project Blog

Ancient Arts Yarn is an Albertan company that hand-dyes an incredible range of beautiful yarns. We’ve brought their Revival base into our store in two custom colours--a soft, sunshine yellow called Sweet Clover and a deep indigo called Pond--as well as a complementary speckled blue called Cezanne.

Revival is a remarkable yarn base. It’s strong and soft, suitable for both warp and weft, with good body and a slight halo. But Revival is also remarkable for how it’s made: fibres that would otherwise be sent to the landfill are gathered from the carding machines at a large mill and combined to create a distinctive wool blend. This yarn is both beautiful and eco-friendly, dyed locally and great to weave with. Gather caught up with Caroline Sommerfeld, Chief Yarn Officer at Ancient Arts, to talk dyeing, yarn blends, and weaving.

Gather: Ancient Arts Yarn is well known in the knitting world, but I believe you’re also a weaver?

Caroline: Yes! I’ve got some rigid heddle looms, and that’s where I do my weaving with the hand dyed yarn. I bought my first rigid heddle loom back when Ashford first brought them out. When I started out I got the 32” model because bigger is better, right? (laughs) And then finally got a smaller one, which is more comfortable for scarves and tea towels.

Gather: Sometimes people talk about knitting yarn and weaving yarn like they’re totally separate things. What differences do you see between yarns that  knitters like and yarns that weavers like?

Caroline: There was a trend in the knitting world that started about ten years ago where people got into superwash yarn. Speckles and super saturated colours got popular, and it’s much easier to dye precise, saturated jewel tones on superwash. That’s where knitting and weaving yarns started to diverge. Weavers also need yarn that’s a bit stronger, so when we source yarn for weavers we watch out for structures that have higher twist and number of plies. Things like singles yarns are fine to weave with if they have a high enough twist—all the bodies of bog people are wearing things woven from singles yarn—but the modern day knitting yarns are obviously made with a very soft twist.

As a multi-craft maker. I make sure we have yarn bases that cross over both knitting and weaving.

Gather: What considerations go into designing a yarn for weaving in terms of colour? Are there certain lengths of repeats in a variegated yarn that work particularly well for weaving?

Caroline: I’m very influenced as a weaver by things like ikat traditions, and I really like the yarn to do some of the work for me. I really enjoy seeing the yarn just do the speaking. The yarn I like to weave with will produce some kind of patterning, by lining up colour repeats in either the warp the weft or both. I’ve done some pieces myself where I combine a stripey warp and a plain weft, and you get these lovely patterns that are quite easy to make.

When you weave something and you put colours together they behave differently than you do when you knit them. Having some experience of weaving helps me when I’m designing. If you’re not careful the colours can turn to mud really easily, or you can just lose colours. I wove with chenille once, and I was bloody minded stubborn to be honest. I chose a browny gold, and orange and a red. It was a really good object lesson in what happens when you weave things together. It was mud.

Gather: So when you plan colours for a weaving yarn, you’re trying to keep colours more distinct?

Caroline: Either keep them distinct or if they’re going to optically blend in the weaving you want to keep them from turning into brown or grey. There are some combinations I love on the skein, but once you weave with them they turn grey. When you get too many complementary colours close together they turn grey. For example yellow and purple together will turn grey. If you put small dots of those colours together then you’re going to have trouble because from a distance they grey out.

In weaving you’re mixing yarns in both directions so you can have to be careful. When you knit a one-inch section you get one stitch out of it, maybe two. When you weave, it will be a much longer stripe. It does some really cool things, but if you want the colours to be more distinct you need a longer stripe.

Something with medium-length colour stripes as a warp is great, but for the weft it really breaks up the colours. If I have a weaving store asking for colours, I will choose colourways with longer repeats.  Longer repeats of colour will show better in weaving.

Gather: That’s really cool! Can I ask about the yarn base? The Revival base uses fibre that would otherwise be wasted, right?

Caroline: Yes! The way that it works is that at the mill we work with they have these gigantic carding machines. They load them up with fibre and card it to get ready for spinning. Once they’ve done the production run, there’s all this fibre left and they have to clean it out of the machine. And what’s a giant mill going to do with that fibre? They need a minimum of 300 kilos of fibre to do a run of yarn. So a lot of mills will just throw it out. It goes into the landfill. I was looking for a reclaimed or recycled yarn, and this mill said we’ve got all this stuff we get off the carder, we can save it up and card it. They saved it up for a year and it ended up being a hundred thousand pounds. A hundred thousand pounds of fibre would have ended up being thrown away if it wasn’t for that!

Each time I buy the reclaimed fibres yarn, the proportions will be different. Because they fibre test it, and the proportions change slightly each time. This worked out really well because what was going through that mill was the kind of yarn I wanted anyway. The only thing that I wouldn’t have chosen was the 2% acrylic, but at least we kept that out of the landfill. Sometimes we get batches that are a little too light on wool or a little too heavy on mohair, and we blend it with additional fibre so we still get something that’s nice to use. Because the mill specializes in mohair, we get a fair amount of mohair in the yarn.

But I also know as a hand spinner that mohair adds a lot of character to the yarn. It adds strength, it adds lustre, and it actually contributes to the structure of the finished cloth. It doesn’t felt like yarn, but it sticks to itself. So the yarn won’t slither all over when you weave. And helps with the stability. It’s almost like having a temple—it makes it easier. That’s my personal experience.

Revival has a higher twist to keep it from dumping mohair everywhere at you. When you finish it, you’ll get just a little bit of a nap forming from the fibres in the yarn but the twist keeps it from falling out. With mohair content in a yarn you can get that lovely soft finish on it.

It’s very important to me, as someone who has studied fibre extensively, that the reclaimed fibre makes a good yarn. We still keep the end user in mind.

This yarn is not overly elastic, which means there is a lot less draw in. With beginner weavers using a yarn that’s overly elastic, you get a lot of draw in and frustrated weavers. You can of course still get draw in with Revival if you don’t lay it in properly, but not as bad.

Gather: Is there anything else you want to share about your design process?

Caroline: Well, one of the things I really enjoy as a dyer, and that I tried to do with the colours I did for Gather is to put an element of watercolour painting in it. My mother was an artist and she taught me to paint a lot of really ugly landscapes that nobody else would ever want, but I got really fascinated with water colour process.

Gather: That’s fascinating. Why do you think watercolour goes so well with fibre arts?

There are some real similarities. You start off with a white or a natural yarn, and then you put down layers of colour. I work from an artistic perspective making my own colours and layers. What is the story behind each colour? When I did the blue for Gather I was thinking of indigo and the whole history of textiles dyed with indigo.

The blue (Pond) has seven layers of dye on it, so it has that real luminosity. With the yellow (Sweet Clover) it has five layers of dye, but the idea was to let the white yarn speak through the dye, the same way that watercolour paintings let the white paper speak through the paint.

To experience Caroline’s colours for yourself and try out the eco-friendly yarn base, check out our Revival Fingering/Sock Weight from Ancient Arts Yarn.

Let me tell you a secret about weavers: we are all knitters. Or at least former knitters, for the most part. Weaving is usually at least someone’s second or third fibre craft. Scratch a weaver, and you will find a knitter, embroiderer, crocheter, or spinner. If you’re a knitter who is curious about weaving, here’s some information to help welcome you into the weaving world.

What is weaving?

Did you do that craft in kindergarten where you took strips of construction paper and went over-under-over-under another set of strips to make something that looked like a basket? That’s the basic idea of weaving a simple structure called plain weave. Except that we use looms to lift up every other strand of yarn at the same time, so that instead of having to go over-under-over-under each one, we can just pass the width-wise yarn (called the weft) straight across, and do a whole line at once. 

In basic knitting, you take a single strand of yarn and transform it into a project by twisting and looping it into different stitches. Basic weaving uses two sets of yarn--the warp and the weft--that intersect with each other at right angles. The warp threads run the length of your project. Your loom puts tension on the warp to hold them tight. Then your loom lifts some warp threads to make an opening, and you pass the weft through that opening. The weft goes back and forth across the width of your project. Depending on which warp threads your loom lifts, and in what order, you can make all sorts of different patterns: diagonals, zig zags, diamonds, floral patterns, geometric shapes... the sky is the limit!

On a single set of warp threads, you can make one project, or two projects, or twenty. It all depends on how long your warp is, what kind of loom you’re using, and your patience.

How does weaving compare with knitting?

Weaving is generally much faster than knitting, because the loom manipulates several threads at a time. On a rigid heddle loom, a reasonably experienced weaver can make a scarf from beginning to end in a few hours. Setting up a floor loom takes a lot longer--it can take several hours to get your warp ready to weave on--but once you’re up and running you can weave a meter of intricate, beautiful cloth as wide as your loom in an hour or two. If you make several projects on the same warp, your time per piece is still just a handful of hours.

Weaving makes efficient use of yarn. Compared to knitting or crocheting, it uses less yarn per square inch of cloth produced. That said, there is always a section of warp that can’t be woven on any given project. This is called “loom waste”, and can be anywhere from five to 30 inches depending on your loom. Getting used to cutting off yarn and throwing it away (or finding a creative use for it) is often a big adjustment for knitters!

Weaving obviously takes up more space in your home than knitting, especially on a large floor loom which can be about the size of a piano! Not something you can fit in a project bag. If space is a concern, table looms and rigid heddle looms are good options. Weaving also requires an initial investment in a loom, which can be a bit of a leap of faith to take. I like to think of it as being like buying a guitar or a set of art supplies… the cost seems more reasonable when you think of all of the enjoyment you will get out of it.

Both weaving and knitting give you the ability to play with colour and pattern, but knitting gives you many more options for the shape of your finished piece. Knitting can give you toques, sweaters, and intricate shawl shapes. Weaving produces rectangular cloth. It may have incredible complexity within that shape, but the overall shape remains the same. That said, there’s nothing saying your weaving has to stay a rectangle forever! We love transforming handwoven cloth into all sorts of projects with a sewing machine. 

What’s the best loom for me to start on? What is a knitter’s loom? 

There is no single right answer here (see our post on Choosing Your First Loom for all the details!). If you have space, time, and ambition, you may want to jump straight into a multi-shaft floor loom. But if you’re looking for a loom that will let you get started quickly and help you use up your knitting stash, rigid heddle looms make great first looms. They range from 16-30 inches wide, and can make scarves, tea towels, and more!

Rigid heddle looms are sometimes marketed as “Knitter’s Looms”, but there is no functional difference between a so-called “Knitter’s Loom” and a Rigid Heddle Loom. It’s just a marketing term. Just to be clear, though, we aren’t talking about the circular plastic ‘hat looms’ you’ll find at big box craft stores. These are fun tools for making tubular hats and socks, but they aren’t weaving looms. Rigid heddle looms are sometimes called “Knitter’s Looms” because knitters love them! They are designed to make quick, small projects using the same sizes of yarn most popular with knitters (anywhere from Bulky to Lace Weight). They also create less loom waste, so you can make a warp with a precious skein of hand-dyed yarn without wasting it (or at least without wasting too much).

What’s the difference between knitting and weaving yarn? Can I weave with my knitting yarn? 

To a large extent, the difference between weaving yarn and knitting yarn is just marketing and packaging. Because weavers often use more yarn in a single project than knitters do, weaving yarn is normally packaged on cones rather than in skeins or balls. Cones are easier to place on the floor and draw yarn off of to wind a warp or a bobbin. And since weavers aren’t carrying around their work in project bags, we aren’t bothered by the bulkiness of the cones.

There are also some fibres (like cotton and linen) and some sizes of yarn (different degrees of ultra-fine yarn) that are more popular with weavers than with knitters, and that get marketed as weaving yarn as a result. But at the end of the day, yarn is yarn. You can weave with knitting yarn and knit with weaving yarn.

So yes, you can absolutely weave up your stash of knitting yarn! In fact, many knitters take up weaving as a stash-busting hobby, since weaving goes through yarn so much faster than knitting does. We stock yarn from local producers who are well loved in the knitting world, like Luddite Yarn and Ancient Arts Yarn.

A few caveats: the yarn that gets used as warp (the threads that run for the whole length of your project) gets put under a lot more tension in weaving, so you can’t use most single-ply yarn or other weak yarns for warp. You can, however, use singles and pretty much anything else you want as the weft (the yarn that you pass back and forth across the warp). You’ll also find that many weavers avoid superwash wool. In knitting, your yarn gets twisted into loops that give your piece volume and squishiness. In weaving, oftentimes your end project is much more two-dimensional. Weavers count on “fulling” or “wet finishing” to give their project a little more body. This is washing the project so that the threads bloom or even slightly felt in a controlled way. You can’t felt superwash, so it won’t full. You can absolutely weave with it, but just know that it will behave differently.

How do knitting yarn sizes translate into other sizing systems?

If you start surfing around Gather’s yarn options, you’ll see that weavers speak a different language. There are funny numbers like 8/4 and 16/2 for cotton and linen, and yarn is being described as having a certain number of ypp (yards per pound) or epi (ends per inch). 

Ends per inch is probably the most useful term to wrap your head around. It refers to the number of strands (or ends) of yarn that go into one inch of warp. It only takes a few strands of bulky yarn to fill up an inch on a loom, so they have a low epi. But you might be able to fit several strands of worsted weight yarn, or dozens of strands of lace weight yarn into the same space! The finer the yarn, the higher the epi.

Here are the rough equivalents of standard knitting yarn sizes in epi:

Super Bulky Yarn = 2.5 epi

Bulky Yarn = 5 epi

Worsted Weight Yarn = 8 epi

Sport Weight and Double Knit Yarn = 10 epi

Fingering Weight Yarn = 12 epi

Lace Weight Yarn = 15+ epi

Cotton has its own sizing system in the weaving world. Each size consists of two numbers: the first is the size of each ply of yarn, and the second is the number of plies. So 8/2 cotton has two strands of size 8 cotton. That means 8/4 is twice as thick (because it has twice as many plies) and 8/8 is even thicker. In knitting terms, 8/8 is worsted weight, 8/4 is sport or fingering weight, and 8/2 is lace weight. 

You’ll find that fine weaving yarn goes much smaller than the finest yarn you would want to knit with. It’s fairly common to see weaving projects using yarn at 18, 20, or even 30 ends per inch! Fine projects take longer, but they can create incredibly delicate cloth. Don’t worry though--most of our beginner patterns range from 10-18 ends per inch.

How can I get started?

Taking a weaving workshop is a great way to get a sense of whether you will love weaving. Many weavers will tell you they fell in love the first time they got hands-on experience on a loom. If you’d like to try one out at home, check in with us about renting a rigid heddle or table loom.

If you already have access to a loom, our free patterns and online education offerings can help get you up and weaving. And of course we’d love to see you in store and talk through which materials would help you turn your ideas into cloth!

Gather is absolutely thrilled to be featuring patterns from Megan Samms, a weaver, regenerative farmer and natural dyer in Katalisk Sipu (Cordroy Valley, Newfoundland). Through her business Live Textiles, Megan produces handwoven cloth as well as weaving and knitting drafts. Her expertise and commitment to raising the technical bar for handweaving in Canada has made her a juried member of the Newfoundland Craft Council and a provincial representative in the Guild of Canadian Weavers. 

We chatted with Megan about the patterns she created for Gather, how her weaving practice connects to her L’nu (Mi’kmaw) territory and traditions, and her excitement for the Artist in Residence program she is launching on her farm.

Gather: Can you tell me about your weaving practice? 

Megan: [laughing] You want me to go all the way back to the beginning? 

I learned to spin yarn from my godfather when I was under ten, maybe seven or eight years old. He owns the old wool mill that his father ran (he opened it as a museum). Then when I was a teenager I learned from my mom and my godmother how to knit. And then I got gifted a loom from a family friend, so I figured I had a responsibility to use it. 

I worked at that time in Treaty 8 territory, just near Slave Lake, on a wildfire lookout. I worked there for 11 years. I had a lot of time and a huge garden there, so I grew or foraged dye plants. I taught myself to weave there from books. (As much as I use the internet as a tool I also can’t stand it. I’m the last person you’ll find googling “how do I do blah blah blah”.) I screwed up so bad so many times. Wasted tons of yarn! But there are some mistakes you only make once. 

After three or four years of weaving on my own I did studio time at the Kootenay School of Arts. I sat in on weaving classes and worked in the studio. The teacher was very generous--Coby Vandergaast--and she helped me a lot. I was working on a 10-shaft loom and trying to figure out how to do, like, triple weave! And she helped me figure that out, which really clicked my understanding of how looms worked. 

Now I’m at home in Newfoundland in my traditional territory, we have a farm here and Live Textiles continues. But traditionally too, a lot of people in my family were knitters, weavers, spinners... A lot of the women here on the north side of the river here I live on were known as basket weavers and then as loom weavers later (I’m Mi’kmaw, this is a Mi’kmaw area). At some point they were also known for natural dyes and weaving, witching and medicine, but a lot of that has been lost for obvious reasons!

I didn’t know that until two or three years ago. I’d been dyeing and weaving and working in the dye world for years when I learned that. My sister worked for the historical society last year or the year before and we working together on digging up that information. In the well-known book Keep Me Warm One Night my community is mentioned--we’re the only place in Newfoundland mentioned in the book. I just this winter came into possession of my great-great-grandmother’s loom, which is over a hundred years old.

Gather: That’s amazing. Do you feel like something was drawing you to weaving and dyeing, even though you weren’t aware of that connection?

Megan: Oh yeah, absolutely. It feels like it’s ancestral talk. When I started weaving and dyeing it all clicked pretty quick. 

Gather: And you keep a dye garden and a farm as well? I see on your site that you keep bees and chickens now?

Megan: I kept bees and chickens at the fire tower as well. This is my tenth year keeping bees! We sell cut flowers, herbs, produce, inside and out body care, duck eggs, and all my dye work comes from the farm.

Gather: There are a few elements in the patterns that you’ve done for Gather that feel like they fit right into your overall practice, like the use of hemp and the really sparing use of colour. Can you talk about why you use colour so carefully?

Megan: [laughing] Well that’s the political part! You put so much labour into dyeing. It’s not just at the dye pot. Really, the colour I put onto fibre begins right now. We’ve been seeding since February, and our indigo and dyer’s chamomile are a few inches tall now. The reason I use dyed yarn so sparingly is because as soon as you introduce dye into textiles the labour goes through the roof! It’s so taken for granted now. Even in the natural dye world… we see a lot of dyers who want and entire sweater, or blanket, or woven piece dyed and it’s so labour intensive. It takes a lot of water. It’s a months-long process. 

I use it sparingly because it’s so precious. It’s humble, because it’s just yarn, but it’s a precious thing. It took months to get to where it is. So that’s part of the reason I use dyed yarn so sparingly.

I don’t buy dyes or extracts or anything. I did when I was first learning, but now I don’t at all. All my dyes are seasonal, based on what’s growing. I embrace what is available to me. And respect it and hold it in the same high regard as the best French madder. I feel like the dyes I can achieve here and the colours I can achieve here are just as good. 

Gather: And how does hemp fit into those values?

Megan: I love hemp. Some hemp is like burlap, but it can be as soft as cotton. It covers all the bases. The really fine 2/16 in the weft for those patterns for Gather is glossy and shiny. 

Hemp used to be grown across Canada widely. There were linen mills, and way more wool mills, and a few cotton mills in Ontario, and there were hemp mills all over the place. It can be manufactured kind of similarly to linen. Hemp fabric went underground when cannabis became criminalized. You couldn’t grow hemp because it’s so hard to tell cannabis plants from hemp plants.

Hemp is long lasting, it’s cooling, it dries quickly. It’s anti-fungal, so it won’t get mouldy on you. And it’s as strong or stronger than linen. All of the mariner ropes and sails for long term overseas travel were made from hemp originally. It’s such a wonderful fabric. It wears really well, just like linen. It becomes better with age, with similar drape and handle. And it’s a really great material to dye. It’s just as thirsty as linen so it really sucks the dye up.

Gather: Is it less water-intensive than cotton?

Megan: I haven’t processed hemp myself, but as far as I know yes it is. It’s far less water-intensive in the field, and even in the processing. With hemp you can basically put it in the ground and just walk away. 

Textile hemp can grow 12 feet tall. The best textile linen only grows four feet tall. Think of the strength of the fibres holding up a 12-foot plant. It’s amazing tensile strength. There’s only so much arable land on the planet. If a lot of that arable land is being taken up with cotton, which is more water-intensive and doesn’t produce as strong fibres, then there’s less place for food production. If a lot of those fields were back-planted with hemp (or even allowed to re-naturalize) it would be a good thing for the planet.

Gather: I looked around for sources on the demi-damask structure you’re using in your patterns, and I couldn’t find anything. Can you tell me about why you chose this structure?

Megan: Demi damask or half damask is a structure I don’t know a ton about either, because it’s not that popular. Damask is super common but half damask not as much. I tend towards really old weaving books, like Edward Worst’s books. They were small print runs, and they’re just really basic drafts, but there are a lot of them. I reference his books quite a bit. His book and one by Oscar Bériau are the only places I’ve found half damask. I love those old patterns and those old techniques… those old forgotten structures and drafts. 

Gather: I know you’re involved in the Guild of Canadian Weavers and have connections to lots of parts of the Canadian weaving scene… what do you see happening in Canadian weaving these days that you’re really excited about?

Megan: There is a huge uptick in interest in weaving! I’m sure you see it there, too. Like, massive! GCW membership has grown hugely in the past few years, as well as people wanting to volunteer. I love to see that! 

And I love that people are interested in getting really into the technical aspects. One of the reasons the GCW was started back in the 40s was to raise the technical bar of handweaving in Canada. In places like Scandinavia, you can become a Red Seal weaver, but in North America options have been limited beyond going to art school to explore more fine art, conceptual weaving. The founders of the GCW developed a Master Weaving program to raise the technical bar. I’ve always been super excited about this program. It’s been in place since the 1940s to be by correspondence and self-paced… it was made before Covid but it’s perfect for this time. There are multiple levels, and we’re working on adding a mentorship program. I think it’s excellent--the kind of parameters you have to work within and the techniques you have to display are so high calibre.

I love that hand weaving as a craft and as a skill is being taken so seriously. Not just as a hobby that you can do with some yarn you found, but something that has knowledge about the importance of sett and balance and what structures are best for what use… that’s what people are inquiring about through the Guild. People want to do this very very well and start creating heirloom pieces again instead of quick-consumption cloth.

Gather: And what’s coming up for you personally that you’re excited to share?

Megan: We organize quarterly makers and gardeners markets here in the valley, and we have one of those coming up in May. There are farms that vend there and other craftspeople, soap makers, we’ve got a seed swap at this one because it’s spring… it’s a very local event obviously, but I get really jazzed about them.

The next big thing is our artist in residency program. I’ve been dreaming about this program for a long time. It has been floating around in the back of my head for years. We just built our house here last spring, and now it’s time for the next step! The lumber is coming off the mill this weekend to build a loom shed. It will be ready by the end of the summer and will have two floors, a living floor and some studio space. We’ll be inviting an artist to come in August 2022. We’ll be feeding them off the farm and keeping them in the loom shed. They’re welcome to come and do research, or build a body of work, or work on an existing body of work. Pretty much whatever they’re interested in doing, we’re excited about. At the end of the residency, they’ll have two opportunities to show their work. One is here in the valley in the fall. And then in the following spring they’ll be able to move their work over to St John’s to the Newfoundland Craft Council to show. I’m so excited for it!

Want to weave Megan's patterns? Kits for her Demi-Damask Kitchen Towels and Wash-Up Cloths are available!

To learn more about the Artist in Residence Program, Megan’s handweaving, and her research into fibre production and natural dyeing, follow her on instagram @livetextiles or visit her Live Textiles site!

Gather’s collaboration with Hand Laboratory started very simply: “Kim got in touch and said we like what you do, do you want to make something for Gather?” Victoria Sanchez remembers. “I wanted to make this a special thing. So we brainstormed a lot, and bounced ideas off each other.” Victoria’s goal was to draw on the common elements between weaving and metalsmithing. Her work with bronze and other metals is slow and precise, requiring meticulous attention to her materials and lots of advance planning. “It’s just like weaving!” she says with a laugh. “I wanted to distill the idea of weaving into pieces of jewelry. I studied the texture, considered using colour…” But her eureka moment came when she was holding a handwoven sample and looking at it with her ‘loop’, the magnifying lens she wears around her neck to see her metal pieces more clearly. “I was looking at the cloth with my loop, and I realized that it’s a bunch of little lines! And the arrangement of those small lines creates endless options. Kim laughed and said ‘yeah, that’s called twill’ and we went from there.”

Victoria ended up creating five different pieces for Gather’s Greenhouse collection, all based on twill progressions in handweaving. Some mimic diamond twill, others show a few warp ends in a row, and the simplest is a vertical line representing a single segment or warp float. Victoria debated whether to include the single float in the collection. “I was hesitating about making the single one, since it’s so simple. But I wanted to keep referencing that building block, that single unit.” That individual float was what made up all the other pieces, she ultimately decided, so it deserved to be honoured with its own piece. 

When making her jewelry for Gather, Victoria went back to that individual unit and built each twill segment piece by piece. She pulled strips of bronze through a metalsmithing tool called a rolling mill to make it uniformly flat with clean edges. Then taking a “tiny” saw, she hand cut each segment of bronze to the same precise size before soldering them together. “A friend of mine told me, you know you can just make a mold and cast those as a single piece, right? And yes, it would have been faster, but I decided not to do it.” Creating the pieces segment by segment was closer to the process of weaving, where one end of warp or one pick of weft is added at a time. It also allowed tiny imperfections to enter the finished product, showing its handmade origin. “When you solder the pieces together, you use something called flux to help with the process. I try to be as meticulous as possible, but there are always some tiny irregularities that make their way in.” Again, she says, “It’s just like weaving!” Weavers and metalsmiths both aim at precision, but love the human touch that enters into the making process. And in both weaving and metalsmithing, Victoria says, “the material dictates what you can do.” Whether we are making tea towels or earrings, craft brings us into collaboration with our materials. We can never truly control the outcomes.

Gather’s collaboration with Victoria ended up revealing deep commonalities between two crafts that seem very different from each other on the surface. Her work is inspired not only by the visual language of weaving, but also by its meticulous and methodical process. Her earrings and pins let the wearer show off their weaving cred, but also provide a point of connection to the shared experience of all crafters in our work.

Check out Victoria’s twill-inspired earrings and pins in Gather’s Greenhouse Collection!

Kalea Turner-Beckman should be no stranger to anyone in the Edmonton knitting scene. A co-founder of the Alberta Yarn project and passionate natural dyer, she has been working to connect Albertan yarn with Albertan crafters since 2014. An accomplished knitter, she is working on a Master Spinner designation. And yes, she also weaves! 

Kalea currently produces her own Luddite Yarn brand. She personally sources the fleeces from local farms, prepares it for processing, has it milled, and then dyes it using natural dyes, many of which she forages from her surroundings or saves from food waste. 

Gather collaborated with Kalea on a batch of local yarn dyed a beautiful range of strong yellows and oranges with simple onion skins! Kalea also created Onion Skin Dye Kits so that you can experience the magic of creating colourful yarn in your own kitchen.

We caught up with Kalea to talk why natural dyes give her joy, the environmental impact of food waste, and her past life as an anarchist dumpster diver.

Gather: When you did you get into natural dyes?

Kalea: I had been dabbling with natural dyes since around 2015, the first year of the Edmonton Resilience Festival. It was put on by the Local Good. They spearheaded a festival around sustainability and local living, green living. I took a natural dye workshop there from Deb Merriam, who is big in the rug hooking world and part of the Focus on Fibre Arts organization. She introduced me to natural dyes, and we were using kitchen scraps--onion skins and red cabbage. At the time I was running the Alberta Yarn project, and we sourced the yarn for the workshop. It was my first time natural dyeing and I loved it.

Then I took a course with Megan Samms out near Slave Lake. It was a collaboration between the Provincial Park and Megan Samms called Wildcrafting Colour. We learned how to weed invasive species and use them for dye. That was in 2017, and that was when I felt like this is my calling, I need to do natural dye.

Gather: So what is it about natural dye that takes it from an interesting technique or material source to the level of calling?

Kalea: I am really passionate about using waste. Obviously I love the colours, and the creativity of it is super fulfilling for me, but turning waste into something useful gives me joy. I don’t really know where the joy comes from. A funny story from my childhood that I like to tell is that I was really passionate about litter when I was a kid. I’ve always been an environmentalist and when I was little I was really worked up about litter. I would spend my recess walking around the yard picking up litter. I’m an introvert... I think it was a way to get away from the crowd of kids and take a quiet walk. The secretary noticed me and gave me a pair of plastic gloves and a trash bag so I could keep picking up litter without getting my hands dirty. 

And then I was a dumpster diver in my early twenties… I got in with anarchist environmentalists in university and was doing direct action around food waste, and that was also a really joyful thing for me. Coming home with a big bag of perfectly good fruit and dinner that would have gone to the landfill otherwise, that was really exciting. And eventually to realize that I could incorporate those same passions and activities into my crafting life was amazing. I went from dumpster diver to natural yarn dyer.

Gather: So the yarn you’ve dyed and the yarn kits you’ve made are dyed with onion skin. Can you talk about what you love about onion skin dyeing?

Kalea: I really love the vibrant colours that you can get with onion skins. The depth of the golden orange is pretty special. The green that I get with the iron is really beautiful as well. 

I also really love the image of Kim and Ang and the rest of you going into the grocery store and taking the onion skins that the store thinks are garbage from underneath the onions! [Editor’s note: the Gather Team took turns gathering all the onion skins we could find at various grocery stores to collect enough for Kalea to dye this yarn.] 

It’s a really funny image. It evokes the same joy that I feel taking things out of the garbage, because it would have just been thrown out. The subversive nature of it is really fun to me. In most areas of my life I’m a rule follower, but the ethics of environmentalism allows me to get past that. But maybe that’s also why the subversiveness of breaking the rules with dyes for me is a great outlet… it frees me from my normal responsibility. 

Gather: Are onion skins good for beginners?

Kalea: They’re really good for beginners. Onion skins are something that beginners often work with. You don’t need a separate set of pots because it’s edible, and you can actually do it without mordanting [using a chemical to help bind the dye to the yarn]. The kits for Gather have mordant in them because it makes the dye more colourfast. But it does attach to the yarn on its own. So it’s an easy project for kids or weekend craft dabblers, and you get a result quickly and easily. Add in the mordant and you also get a true colourfast and lightfast long term stable dye.

Gather: Is there something particularly fun about kitchen scraps for you? Or something important about working with food waste?

Kalea: There’s just so much food waste! It is mind boggling. Especially when I’m working with avocados and other food that we’re importing from far away. How much energy has gone into growing that avocado and transporting it here… and then we just throw useful parts of it away? After we’ve FLOWN it here? It boggles my mind. You get a beautiful pink colour from the pits and the skins. With onions obviously they aren’t coming from as far away, but still, if we are putting the energy into growing these, so we may as well use all of them.

My partner gets frustrated because I take so long chopping an onion when I’m cooking. First I take off the outer layer that’s good for dyeing and I put it in the dedicated onion skin jar I keep in the kitchen to save for later. And then I take the leathery layer and the tops and the bottoms and I put those in a bag in the freezer for making stock. I also save like my carrot tops and peelings for stock. So when I roast a chicken or have some meat bones I can put them in my slow cooker with all my saved onion bits. And THEN I chop the onion. When I’m cooking with onions it’s just the very end bit of the roots that goes in the garbage. Or in the compost in the summer. I live in an apartment building that has a community garden in the back. The management company was turning an unused tennis court into a community garden. So I’ve got a little garden space and there’s someone who is in the building who has taken the Master Composter through the City who manages a communal compost for us. The onions go into making soil that we share with each other. So I really get the most out of an onion.

To see just one of the amazing things Kalea does with onions, check out the Onion Skin Dyed Hill & Aran Sample Gradient Pack that she made using the onion skins that the Gather Team collected. Or if you’d like to put your own kitchen waste to good use, try out her Dyeing with Onion Skins DIY Kit!

Looms are a big part of what makes weaving so much fun. They are beautiful, often complex, always fascinating pieces of equipment. As you weave, you get to know your loom inside and out: its quirks, its strengths, its construction… But when you’re looking to buy a new loom, things can feel much more uncertain, and more than a little confusing. Here, then, is all the information you need to narrow down which kind of loom is right for you.

Before we get into the details, it’s best to ask yourself a few big picture questions:

What are your practical constraints? How much space do you have? Looms range from compact 15” widths to 60”+. What do you want to spend? Costs vary as widely as width does, from $250 to $5000 or more. The best loom for you is one that fits your home and your budget. 

What do you want to make? You’ll need a loom at least a little bit wider than the fabric you want to weave. A small loom is great for scarves, but you’ll want at least 15” or more for tea towels, 30+” for shawls or baby wraps, and as wide as possible for blankets or yardage.

What are your creative goals? Do you usually end up itching to do the most complex possible version of a craft? If you know you’ll shoot for the stars, you might want as many shafts as possible on a loom you can grow into. Or would you rather enjoy weaving quick and satisfying pieces? A simpler loom like a rigid heddle loom can give a lot of joy.

Now that you’ve thought a bit about what kind of weaving you want to do, take a deeper dive into one or more of the sections below covering three common styles of looms. Rigid Heddle looms are small, quick, and fun. Table looms give maximum pattern complexity in minimum space. Floor looms let you take on projects of ambitious size and intricacy.

On to the looms!

Rigid Heddle Looms

• Price Range $250 - $550
• 15” to 30” weaving width
• Fast to get set up, slow to weave on
• Can produce simple weave structures
• Best for: weavers who want to make individual pieces quickly and easily; weavers who want to dip their toes in the water; weavers with limited space and//or budget

For some people, their rigid heddle is their forever loom. For others, it’s a first step down the path to larger and more complex looms. Whatever the case, these little looms can provide hours upon hours of happy weaving. 

Rigid heddle looms are small, simple, and satisfying. They combine three different mechanisms from multi-shaft looms (the reed, the beater, and the heddles) into one piece (the rigid heddle reed). This makes weaving on a rigid heddle loom easy to learn. It also means rigid heddle looms are (relatively) fast and simple to put a new warp on. You can measure, wind on, and thread a new warp in a couple of hours, compared to the often multi-day set up of floor looms. Once you’re up and weaving, the pace slows down. Lifting and lowering the rigid heddle reed is slower than pressing a treadle (foot pedal) on a floor loom, and the stick shuttles that rigid heddle weavers commonly use aren’t as speedy to weave with as a boat shuttle. That said, this only means that you get to spend more time on the actual weaving part of weaving, AKA the fun part!

Weavers usually make short warps on rigid heddle looms, setting up to make a single scarf or a couple of tea towels at a time. Short, simple projects are the sweet spot for these looms. Rigid heddle looms are designed to produce plain weave, which is the simplest weave structure. There are plenty of ways to add interest to your plain weave pieces, from playing with different fibres to adding texture using pick up sticks. But while it is technically possible to branch out into twill and doubleweave on a rigid heddle loom, doing so is cumbersome and extremely time consuming. Many weavers find using the loom for its intended purpose--plain weave with some embellishment--to be more enjoyable.

Rigid heddle looms are sometimes called “Knitters’ Looms” for their popularity with knitting enthusiasts. There’s a good reason for this: rigid heddle looms are great for stash-busting a hoard of knitting yarn. Rigid heddle looms waste very little yarn compared to other looms. With a floor loom, you may end up throwing out 24 inches of warp as loom waste. With a rigid heddle loom, loom waste can be 8 inches, or even less. That frees you up to use fancy fibres in your warp without worrying that you will be throwing too much of it in the garbage.

These are also some of the most easily portable looms around. Some, like the Flip, also fold for easy storage. If you’re dreaming of weaving on your deck, or taking your hobby on a road trip with you, a rigid heddle loom can get you there. If you’re staying closer to home and don’t want to take up too much space in an apartment or in an already-crowded craft room, these looms are easy to stash when you need the space.

Gather’s Options:

Schact Cricket Looms

Schacht Flip Looms

Leclerc Bergere Looms

Extras: If you want to weave with different weights of yarn, you’ll want to pick up an extra rigid heddle reed or two. If you’re a Flip fan, you can pick up a trestle stand to save table space. The Weaver’s Idea Book is a comprehensive and inspiring collection of different techniques to try to give yourself a creative workout.

Table Looms: 

• Price Range  $500 - $2000
• 18” to 27” weaving width
• Slower to start than a rigid heddle loom but faster to weave 
• Can produce both simple and highly complex weave structures
• Best for: weavers who want to be able to explore complicated patterns, but have limited space or mobility .

Table looms normally have either 4 or 8 shafts, making them just as capable as floor looms of producing gorgeous, complex weave structures. Twills, overshot, double weave, shadow weave, you name it, you can weave it on a table loom. Table looms are also very portable, making them excellent looms for bringing to workshops or travelling with. With a table loom, you can weave on your back porch or on vacation. You can also easily lend your loom out to a friend to get them hooked and turn them into your weaving buddy!

Because table looms pack the capacity for complex weaving into a small package, they are beautiful and often intricately designed small looms. Louet looms have elegant lines and artful details. Schacht’s table loom has a more rustic look, but is engineered for clean, accurate weaving. With a table loom, the entire weaving process is in view while you work. This can be mesmerizing.

The major downside to table looms compared to floor looms is speed. On a floor loom, labour is divided between your hands and your feet. With a table loom, you are doing everything with your hands. This slows down the pace of weaving, and can make it harder to get into a good rhythm. That said, if you have limited mobility or joint issues in your legs, doing everything with your hands can be a real positive.

In terms of warp lengths, table looms are in the middle of the range. Table looms allow you to make longer warps than a rigid heddle loom, but not as long as a floor loom. You can make a single project at a time, or you can absolutely set up a single warp that will give you several dish towels or a handful of table runners. 

Table looms hit a sweet spot between size and complexity. They let you explore a range of techniques while only taking up a small footprint. 

Gather’s Options:

Schacht Table Loom

Louet Jane

Louet Erica

Extras: To make finer or heavier cloth, it is useful to have more than one reed. You will also need a warping board or warping mill for preparing your warps. An extra shuttle or two will let you comfortably switch between weft colours. Stands are available if you want to free up table space. Anne Dixon’s Handweaver’s Pattern Directory will get you started with a wide range of four-shaft patterns.

Floor Looms:

• Price range $1700 - $5000
• 18” to 60” weaving width
• Slow to get set up, fast to weave on
• Can produce both simple and highly complex weave structures
• Best for: weavers who want the widest range of possibilities and options; ambitious weavers who want to produce a large volume of cloth or want to sell their work; 

If you have the space, the budget, and the ambition, get a floor loom. There’s a reason why these looms are treated as the gold standard weaving loom. They are incredibly flexible, producing both simple and highly complex patterns. They are efficient, allowing you to make multiple items on a single warp. They are fast to weave on, dividing the labour of weaving between your hands and your feet. And they are incredibly enjoyable to use. Floor loom weaving is what often comes to beginners’ minds when they picture weaving--the rhythm of shafts rising and falling, a shuttle flying back and forth, and a long roll of finished work slowly building up around the cloth beam. 

Floor looms are usually about the size of a piano. Weaving widths ranges from 18-60 inches, with 26-45 inch widths being the most popular. They take up a large footprint in your home, but their size comes with many benefits. You can weave cloth with greater width. You can also weave very long warps. While rigid heddle looms top out around five yards of length, floor looms can hold massive warps ups to 50 yards long. Don’t worry, though! You can still weave a short warp or make a scarf-width piece on a floor loom. But if you end up wanting to push your limits, the option is there. A floor loom can carry you through your entire weaving life, no matter where you end up wanting to take your weaving.

Of course, all this potential comes with trade offs. Setting up a warp on a floor loom (“dressing the loom”) is a slow process. Dressing a rigid heddle loom takes a couple of hours; winding a warp and dressing a floor loom is likely to take more like 6-8 hours. Floor looms also produce a substantial amount of loom waste, with 24+ inches of the warp being cut off as waste on each project. Making multiple pieces on the same warp minimizes the waste per piece.

Floor looms require physical mobility and strength to operate and maintain. I am often down on the ground next to my floor loom to adjust the tie ups or repair the brake. I also end up shoving it around the room a fair bit to get clear access to different parts of the loom for beaming, threading, etc. Weavers with limited strength in their hands or legs, or with limited ability to get up and down may need occasional assistance setting up a warp. 

One of the most fun parts of having such a large and complex tool is really getting to know your loom. Floor looms are made of solid wood with intricate metal mechanisms. Over the years, you will end up learning your loom’s quirks, doing minor repairs, and discovering all of its strengths and possibilities. It’s no wonder that many weavers end up naming their looms. 

Gather is a certified dealer for both Schacht and Leclerc floor looms. Schacht’s popular “Wolf” looms range in size from the 18 inch Wolf Pup to the 36 inch Mighty Wolf. Most of our workshop looms are Baby and Might Wolves. They are beautifully designed, lightweight, and easy to treadle. They fold up surprisingly small and can be purchased with optional “stroller” wheels, making them a breeze to move around a craft room. Schacht’s designs are constantly being improved and updated, making these looms modern and innovative.

Leclerc looms have a deep Canadian history, having been manufactured in Quebec out of solid maple since the 19th century. Leclerc looms are solidly built, standing up to weavers with a heavy beat or high tension and lasting for decades and decades. The Artisat and the Nilus are popular jack looms, and the Fanny is a. A full range of accessories and upgrades are easily ordered, letting you tweak your loom until it’s perfect for you. 

Gather has several great floor loom options:

Schacht Wolf Pup

Schacht Baby Wolf

Schacht Mighty Wolf

Leclerc Nilus

Leclerc Artisat

Leclerc Fanny

Extras: Extras: To make finer or heavier cloth, it is useful to have more than one reed. A comfortable loom bench will extend your weaving time and protect your health. You will need a warping board or warping mill for preparing your warps, and a raddle for spreading the warp out when you’re winding it onto your loom. An extra shuttle or two will let you comfortably switch between weft colours, and a bobbin winder will make loading up new bobbins a breeze. Anne Dixon’s Handweaver’s Pattern Directory will get you started with a wide range of four-shaft patterns. A sectional back beam improves speed and tension for weaving very long warps, and can be added later if you desire. 

The holidays are upon us! Somehow, 2020 has managed to fly by despite also being the longest year ever. As I shop for gifts, I am making a special effort to give meaningful things this year. Something about spending so much time at home with all my “stuff” has me reassessing what I need to keep around. I’m also making a particular effort to shop small and shop local, as I’m sure many of us are. If you’d like to add some crafty & local gifts to your stash of presents, here are a few suggestions for gifts to make and gifts to buy.

Gifts to Make

Two words: Tea. Towels. There’s a reason why the North Side Girls’ tea towels are so popular. They are universally useful, colourful, and practical. Having a handwoven tea towel makes boring chores feel just a little bit fancy. Plus, they are more absorbent and more durable than many store-bought options. Check out our Classic Red Striped and Sorbet Stripes tea towel patterns for quick, satisfying holiday gifts. 

Speaking of useful, winter scarves are always warmly received in Edmonton (pun intended). For a cozy and giftable winter scarf, check out our scarf patterns using alpaca yarn. Alpaca is an absolute dream: even more warmth than wool with barely any prickle and a buttery softness. Alpaca scarves feel luxurious and stand up to real weather. Absolutely perfect for a grim prairie winter. 

Here’s an unexpected option that could be deeply meaningful: rather than making something new, what about mending or repurposing something old? Our recent patchwork throw workshop has us thinking about all sorts of materials that could be added to a quilt: old ties, childhood blankies, heirloom blankets that won’t make it to the next generation in their current state. Or if you know someone has a beloved blanket, jacket, or sweater that is past the point of being usable, why not see if you can repair it? We’ve got the snips, darning eggs and sewing notions to get beloved textiles back in circulation.

Gifts to Buy

I love making gifts, but sometimes my shoulders just don’t have it in them to throw one more shuttle. 

Crafters tend to run in packs, so you’re likely on the lookout for gifts for at least one fellow creative person. Simple, high quality tools with long lifespans are always warmly received. Their non-crafty friends may not know the magic of cutting cloth with a brand new pair of super-sharp industrial-grade LDH scissors, but you do. A smooth, quiet bobbin winder makes weaving so much more pleasant, and something as simple as a shiny brass sley hook can brighten a craft room. For fellow weavers, a handy Schacht Hemstitching Guide can save a lot of frustration, and comes with a perfect-sized tapestry needle!

But not everyone is up for crafts that require investing in tools and looms. If you have a sewist on your list, our Handwoven Pouch Kit is a quick and satisfying project. Each kit contains everything you need to make a zippered pouch Procion Dyes open up a wide number of possible projects from tiny tubs of pigment, and a Scarf Blank is the perfect blank canvas for a first dye project. Dyes are also a great way to get creative while extending the life of your clothes.  Over-dyeing old pieces and upcycling fabric is trendy, fun, and sustainable. In the middle of all the holiday consumption, working with what you already have feels like a radical act. 

Last but far from least, you can give the gift of a shared experience. Research shows that spending money on experiences gives more happiness than spending on material goods (although I don’t think these researchers have ever been yarn shopping). Why not work through our online class together, or give an “IOU a weekend at Gather Gift Card”, this gift will give you something to look forward to together. 

However you spend your holidays, we hope you stay warm, stay connected, and stay creative!

-Ali Hurlburt

At the end of a beginner weaving workshop, I remember one student happily looking over her completed scarf saying “There were so many little steps to get here, but now I see how it all comes together!” Weaving is a complex craft. So much of the satisfaction of weaving comes from seeing a cone of yarn transform into an intricate, orderly grid one step at a time… if only we can learn to cleanly and confidently navigate all those little steps to get there. 

Gather’s online course Learn to Weave on a Four Shaft Loom is a clear, reassuring guide to weaving that breaks down the process into manageable bites. It takes you through a single project from beginning to end, explaining each step along the way. 

Kim and Angela asked me to watch through the course and share my thoughts, since I’m an expert rigid heddle loom weaver, but just an intermediate four-shaft weaver. I taught myself to weave without any in-person instruction. I’ve cobbled together my knowledge from books, videos, online groups, and friends over the last few years. What I’ve learned from that process is that there’s a lot of good advice out there, and there’s also a lot of legitimately really, really terrible advice. 

It’s a relief to have one solid source that gives you the good advice and helps you steer clear of the rest. If you’re a new weaver and you want one straightforward and reliable source to learn from, this course is perfect. Kim is a master weaver who has learned from many sources and distilled it all into a beginner course. She can save you from doing all the research that I did! If you’ve already learned to weave but want a refresher, I think you’ll find this course very helpful. There were a handful of tips and tricks in this course that I hadn’t encountered before anywhere else. I’ve immediately put them into practice on my loom, and they are already saving me time and improving my accuracy. 

One thing I particularly appreciate about Gather’s online course compared to other weaving videos I’ve watched is the quality and clarity of the filming. When Kim is explaining something, you can see exactly what she is doing with her hands. The close-up shots and slow movements made it much easier for me to understand exactly what I need to do. The videos are short and focused. This means that when I need a refresher on one particular item--like suspending the lease sticks--I can pop straight into the correct video and get what I need without digging for it.

I also love how calming and encouraging the course is. Kim is a patient and supportive in-person teacher, and those qualities translate really clearly into the online course. Kim really does care about welcoming new weavers into the craft in a way that supports and empowers them. She makes tasks that can feel overwhelming--like calculating how much yarn a project will take--feel achievable. Because the course works through one manageable-sized project, it lets you focus on mastering the fundamentals of weaving rather than being bombarded with options. Then you can take the skills you’ve learned and the supplemental PDFs for project planning and spread your wings. 

Based on the quality of instruction I’ve seen from Gather so far, I had high expectations of this course. Honestly, it blew those expectations out of the water. This resource has fabulous content, and is filmed and organized in a way that makes it easy and enjoyable to work through. Wherever you are in your weaving journey, I wholeheartedly recommend Learn to Weave on a Four Shaft Loom.

Rigid heddle looms are a great entry point into the world of weaving. Brand new weavers can quickly whip off a pile of beautiful projects on a Cricket or a Flip. But if you’ve already made a drawer full of dish towels or given scarves to everyone in your family, you may be curious about what you can do with your rigid heddle loom beyond straightforward plain weave. You’re in luck! There are plenty of ways to change up the structure, texture, and aesthetic of your weaving with your rigid heddle loom.

Get into Colour-and-Weave

Do you love contrasting colours and tidy geometric patterns? Colour-and-weave pieces use particular patterns of colour in the warp and weft to give the appearance of solid lines, decorative dots, grids, crosses, and much more… despite still being plain weave. Houndstooth is perhaps the most popular example of colour-and-weave. Another popular colour-and-weave pattern, log cabin, produces super cool 3D effects. Weaving these patterns means putting careful planning into your warping and being careful to keep the correct colour order in your threading. It will teach you how to handle two shuttles at once, which unlocks a whole new world of colour possibilities. The extra effort you put in more than pays off in fun and impressive results. Check out our “Colour-and-Weave Towels” pattern for an easy starting point, or pick up a copy of The Weaver’s Idea Book for dozens of colour-and-weave options.

Pick up a pick up stick

This is the fastest (and for me, the most satisfying) way to add texture to your rigid heddle piece. You know those skips that happen in your weaving where your weft jumps out of the over-under-over-under pattern of plain weave and makes a raised line of thread on the surface of your work? Pick up sticks let you do that on purpose. A pick up stick is a flat stick that lives behind the heddle. As you weave, you can turn and slide it to manipulate some of the threads that are in the slots of your loom to create ‘floats’ (which is what you call skips when they’re not a mistake). 

Creating weft and warp floats can add thickness and softness, create beautiful visual effects, or even open little lacy windows in your weaving. The Weaver’s Idea Book is a great resource, again. Or if this all sounds a little mysterious, you can take a workshop with us to get some guidance mastering pick up sticks.

Try some finger-manipulated techniques

Pick up sticks are great, but sometimes you’ve just got to get your hands in there. Finger-manipulated techniques are ways to twist, wrap, and tweak your warp and weft with your fingers to produce intricate, delicate effects. If you like curvy lines, take a look a leno: pairs of warp threads are twisted over each other and pinned in place with a pick of weft to create smooth, twisty waves. Brook’s Bouquet is great for lightweight pieces and window-coverings: the weft is wrapped around bundles of warp threads, opening up windows in the weave.

Finger-manipulated techniques are beautiful, but they are slow. It’s best not to start by using them for an entire piece--I learned this lesson the hard way! Build up your confidence by adding a few lines of leno or Brook’s Bouquet to the ends of a scarf or table runner, and get more adventurous from there.

About that simple old plain weave…

Are you sure you’re really sick of it? Changing up the weight of yarn you work with can also bring new life to your weaving. If you’re using the 8-dent reed that came with your loom, try picking up a 10-dent or even a 12-dent reed to experiment with making finer fabric. Or if you’re feeling burnt out on fine yarn and want some quick wins to get your weaving mojo going again, you can head in the other direction and go super chunky with a 5-dent reed. 

Sometimes changing up your material can open up new challenges and new projects. If you’ve been mostly weaving wool scarves, try some cotton kitchen towels. If you’ve mastered cotton, see how your skills translate to a silk noil warp, or take on linen for more of a challenge. Combining different fibres in the same warp can be tricky, but can yield incredible results. How about a slubby Mallo cotton combined with some wool for a highly textured warp, or experimenting with some unusual fibres in our Mill Ends? Experimenting sparks creativity like nothing else. And as an added bonus, it’s a great excuse to go yarn shopping!

Rigid heddle looms are simple looms. That’s part of what’s so wonderful about them--they are inexpensive, small, and easy to learn. But even simple tools can create a wide range of beautiful weaving projects! Hopefully you find ways to get every last drop of creative possibility out of your rigid heddle loom.