double weave

My daughter's best friend is a devoted Harry Potter fan.  She not only owns all the books and movies, but has recently visited Harry Potter World.  When she found out she was pregnant she wanted to decorate her nursery with a Harry Potter theme.  I, too, am a Harry Potter fan, so this was a labor of love.  I picked the colors because they represented Gryfindor, the house Harry belonged to.  I had initially picked several motifs to weave, but decided I was better off narrowing down my choices since this weave structure is very labor intensive.

I had set myself a goal of weaving an inch a week.  It seems I spent a LOT of time UN-weaving on some of those weeks.  I do believe I am now expert in un-weaving double weave.  I doubt I will ever attempt another project of this size, but it's nice to know that it can be done.

I'm using a 3/2 perle cotton in cream and sage green - the green shows brighter in the pictures than it really is.I am going to sample a variety of techniques and end up with a usable sampler wall hanging. At least that's the plan. . . 10-19-2011 - The wall hanging was cut off the loom this evening and will be wet finished tomorrw - then the finishing touches added - still not sure what I am going to do with the bottom fringe but some beads may find their way into that area. 10-27-2011 - the wall hanging is finished. All the loosed ends woven in, fringe detail finished. Finished length with fringe is about 5.5 feet. I think it will find a home on my office door at work. I tried out several different double weave patterns and techniques including plain weave, twill, separate layers, using supplementary weft for honeycombs, etc. , window panes and finger manipulated lace weaves on the top layer with a solid layer underneath. I liked some of the techniques and am looking to explore double weave on the rigd heddle some more with differnt weight and content yarns. And of course I need to do that double width throw sometime too!

I was motivated to post this project after seeing Metex's seamless bags posted last year (and which just showed up on FB to remind me). I made this some time ago on my backstrap loom just as a little experiment in warp-faced double weave. I wanted to use the fact that warp-faced double weave without a pick up pattern produces a tube to make a seamless pouch...just for fun!! One face is purple and the other yellow.

I wove a row of pick up pattern along the bottom which sealed the tube.

Once it was off the loom I worked a couple of rows of weft twining along the bottom to hold the weft and cut the fringe. I wove some triangles along the sides as well which weren't necessary for the tubular form and had to stop weaving them after a while as the difference in take up between the patterned edge and the plain body was considerable. 

So I decided to do some supplementary weft motifs instead in the inlay method I learned in Guatemala, turning the weft in such a way that it outlined the motif. 

This pouch is just the right size for eyeglasses and I sewed a strip of tape measure into the top seam to create one of those "snap openings''...the kind where you squeeze the sides of the pouch and the top pops open.....like so... and that was the only sewing involved. My friend Bobbie gave me the tape measure idea.

This was a prototype. If I make another, I will plan the pattern beforehand rather than make it up as I go!

And here it is along with a few other small pouches I have made lately on the backstrap loom in supplementary weft and warp and complementary warp pick up techniques as well as finnweave.

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