I had a conversation with a friend about this at the recent Guild meeting. She wondered about the structure for honeycomb. But I don't think it's a weave structure, I think it's an effect that can be made from several weave structures. Though I think it needs to have plain weave in the cells to be considered honeycomb.
Honeycomb is a plain weave derivative. The floats come from not including a pair of shafts in that section. The threading is plain weave spread out over several shfts, the tieup shows only plain weave with some "holes" where the long floats come. And those floats distort off loom to product the effect.
Thank you, Sara! I can see that clearly now. The honeycomb pieces that I've seen were all plain weave-based pieces. The easiest way to get a honeycomb that I've found is to mix basket weave squares with plain weave squares in a project. It squashes up off the loom into a nice thick spongy cloth with rounded cells. More pronounced (in cotton, at least) when you wash it.
I still don't know if I'd call it a structure on its own. Like those color-and-weave effects or diversified plain weave. They aren't really structures, but they are very distinctive derivatives.
I'd consider it a treadling technique which can be done on a number of different threadings to produce similar effects - cells surrounded by a heavier outlining thread(s) which undulates (out around woven cells, in toward non-woven cells) in a plain tabby or tabby substitute shed. Depending on the base threading and number of shafts you might leave more than a pair out of shafts out of the treadling. Though we usually see it with plain weave in the cells, there is no reason you couldn't fill the cells with some other structure with a little experimentation.
Look up Bress and some of the older weaving references for fun play with the idea.
Laurie Autio
So I have a follow up...
Would "Spider Weave" be considered a variation also?
I have only woven Honeycomb once or twice, in a round robin situation, and I am not sure the participant's loom I used was set up properly, or the weft provided wasn't right. (So I don't consider having had a successful "honeycomb experience" under my belt yet.) I have woven a successful sample of Spider Weave from the Sharon Alderman book.
I think I need to revisit Honeycomb.
So last night I leafed through The Weaving Book by Helene Bress and found the honeycomb discussion on Page 257. She's pretty clear about it being a treadling variation.
Sally, sometimes you can't see the honeycomb until the piece is taken off the loom and the tension relaxes. Then the cell outlines bend. But using a much heavier weft for the cell outline is preferred. Otherwise it won't distort the web as much. I'm sorry that you honeycomb experience was so flat. ;-)
I'm not sure I know what Spider Weave is. Could someone out there enlighten us?
Spider Weave is what somebody called cannele (accent on the last e). It is a generally woven with a deflecting weft but sometimes the warp deflects. I think we had a discussion of cannele on Weavo a while ago. There are some variations in Oelsner and also some in a pamphlet available on handweaving.net
Bonnie
