14: Rigid-Heddle Weaving (transcript)

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Hello, and welcome to episode 14, Rigid Heddle Weaving. Today we’re going to explore the possibilities of the simple and portable rigid heddle loom. Our guest, talented weaver Betty Davenport, is renowned for pushing this loom to new heights. We’ll talk about some exciting new developments, get an update on how the Teach A Friend to Weave contest is going, review the new Flip rigid heddle loom from Schacht, and answer listener questions.

Musical Interlude

This past week has been – Amazing! 

First of all, the latest Handwoven came out.  This is the March/April 2007 edition.

I had an article in it.  I can’t tell you how over the moon I am about that because I’ve been wanting to be published in Handwoven ever since I first started weaving.  It took my friend Kate to look and me and say “Syne, if you want to be published in Handwoven, why don’t you send them something?”

And I was like, oh, yes, good idea!  So sometimes you just need that weaving buddy to give you that kick in the pants and get you over that hump.

The articles I wrote talk about creating overshot bookmarks with very fine threads.  My inspiration there was Lillian Whipple and Judith Mackenzie helped me get started with overshot and taught me some very important refinements for weaving overshot.

Then at the very end, there is an article about how to set up a space for weaving, how to make room in your life for weaving and all of the equipment and supplies that come with it.  And how to negotiate that with a spouse or partner.

So if you are interested in those topics, please check out the latest Handwoven. 

I’ve got to tell you though, I did not know they were going to put the button on the cover that says “Meet the star of WeaveCast.com!”

When I saw that, the first thing I did was look over my shoulder like, who are they talking about?

The way I see it, I’m just talking to you, just me and you having a conversation, and you’re as much a star of this show and I am.  But it was wonderful to get the publicity and if you are a new listener who has come to WeaveCast through seeing it in Handwoven, welcome.

In other great news, after the anniversary episode, listeners like you were very generous and sent in donations.  We were able buy transcription equipment to replace the equipment that had broken.  So many, many thanks.

Transcripts will continue so that our listeners who are hearing impaired or broadband impaired will be able to enjoy the show.  Thank you for your generosity.

There were so many donors last episode that I’m going to defer thanking people individually till the end of this show, but do know that no matter how much your donation, it blows me away when people send money.  I have invested a lot in this show and the listeners have invested as well.  I really appreciate your help.

Other great news – I’ve been looking for ways to fund WeaveCast, and to fund some of the improvements I’d like to make on the show.  One of the improvements I’ve been wanting to make for a long time is better audio on telephone interviews.

I am able to do telephone interviews, but if you’ve ever noticed, the sound quality drops markedly.  In fact you’ll notice it in this episode when I interview Betty Davenport.

It goes from smoooooth studio mic to very tinny sound.  The reason that happens is I’ve been using a $15 gadget from Radio Shack to do my telephone recording because real telephone recording equipment is expensive!

I put in a grant to the Handweavers Guild of America.  They run a Teach It Forward Grant, whose purpose is to fund who are teaching handweaving and inspiring who have never woven before to try weaving.

I knew it was a bit of a long shot because what I do in WeaveCast is informative, and hopefully inspiring, but it’s not traditional teaching.  I’m not sitting next to you at your loom.

But I put in an application, and lo and behold, I got some wonderful news this week.  The Handweavers Guild of America decided to fund my project, so I’ve placed an order for some equipment that should markedly improve out telephone interview sound.  I am grateful and honoured and pleased as punch that this has happened.  So thank you Handweavers Guild of America.

Also Interweave Press is a partner with HGA in funding this grant, so thank you Interweave Press.

This will make me feel better about doing telephone interviews because I confess that I’ve been hesitant to do them.  I’ve done them because there were really cool people I wanted to talk to.  They weren’t coming to Seattle and I wasn’t going to where they were going to be.  But I always felt kind of bad when I did a telephone interview because these weavers are real treasures and what they say is very inspiring and wonderful.  I just feel it should be in the best possible audio quality.  I’m delighted that I’ll be able to do more long distance interviews without feeling like I’m short changing the speaker with bad audio.  So, yay!

And speaking of teaching others to weave, let’s check in and see how that Teach A Friend To Weave contest is going.

(dial tone)

Oh dear, I seem to have tapped the wrong line – hang on.

(dial tone)

You know what?  There has not been a single entry yet.  If you’re the kind of person who is like “I never win contests” here is your opportunity.  We have some great prizes.  Schacht has donated a boat shuttle to the contest and I was planning to offer a hand wound hand painted warp in the colours of your choice – but if nobody enters then I’m going to have to mail back that boat shuttle.

And you know what guys?  Schacht donated that boat shuttle  because they really support the idea of people learning to weave and if we don’t get any entries I doubt that loom manufacturers in the future will be willing to donate prizes.

So if you like contests, and you like prizes, please support this effort by entering and hey – you could end up with cool weaving swag for your efforts.

I’m going to make things a little easier.  Many listeners are knitters.  I consider it perfectly fair if you are a knitter who has never woven before, and teaches yourself to weave, you can enter.  That would be fair.  I mean I’m assuming that you’re on friendly terms with yourself. 

I also am going to drop the audio requirement.  You no longer have to call the voice mail, or send me an audio comment.  I thought it would be really fun to have a bunch of different voices talking about learning to weave on the show, but I know that talking on the air can be a bit intimidating, and so you can just email in. 

Hey, here’s my experience, so and so taught me to weave and here’s how it went. 

Or, if you are the teacher you can also just mail your entry directly in.

So that’s the new rules.  Teach somebody to weave – even if it’s yourself, then via Odeo, via the telephone voice mail line, or you can email me at syne@weavecast.com and say who you are, who taught you, and what you learned to weave.

And I’m going to extend the deadline because I want the people who are new to the show to be able to have a chance to play and I’m hoping to get more than – well – no entries?

We’re going to run this to the end of April so if you’ve been putting off teaching a friend to weave because you’re trying to finish off your taxes, which in the United States are due April 15, I completely understand.  Schedule them for April 16, get your taxes done and then teach a friend to weave.

I’ve got another cool blog to tell you about.  This is jasmine.blogspot.com.  She does some really cool things using photo editing programs to design her textiles and has been generous enough to share that information on line. 

She’s also weaving the ribbons for prizes at the up coming ANWG conference.  Very cool site, go check that out.

Musical interlude

And now a listener question.

Elizabeth asked “can you tell me what size heddle to use with double knitting or sport weight knitting yarns?

The rigid heddle loom I would like to buy has heddles in sizes 8, 10 or 12 and the fibre shops near me carry mostly knitting supplies.”

It’s a great question because weaving shops are sadly, few and far between.

So how do you go about picking up any yarn, in this case a knitting yarn, and knowing what set to use?

An easy test is, you can take the yarn and wrap it around a ruler, count the number of wraps per inch, and then divide by two.  That will give you a pretty good guess for plain weave. 

Another resource is many on-line yarn sellers have set information on their site.  To get a definitive answer for your question, I went up to Halcyon Yarn.  I went to their knitting yarn section and started browsing through.  I noticed that some of these knitting yarns are common weaving yarns – such as 3/2 Perle cotton, and Harrisville wool.  Both used for knitting and weaving.

Now if you click on the specifics for Perle cotton or Harrisville wool, you will get set information because Halcyon Yarn caters to both knitters and weavers.

From their web site, which is at http://www.halcyon.com (and I will have a link to that on the show notes) I found the following information.

Sport weight yarn, which runs 1150 to 1600 yards per pound, they recommended a set of 10 to 12 for plain weave.  They call it “tabby” – same thing.

In double knitting, they say that runs 1000 to 1200 yards per pound and they recommended a set of 8.

Another great resource on the internet is WEBS which is available at http://www.yarn.com and they also have some set information there as well.

So, use a ruler, divide by two, sample – which is, of course, the best way to find out what set is going to work for a given yarn – and then also check internet yarn retailers, because many of them have set information.

Musical interlude

And now it’s time for today’s Tip of the Day.

Today’s tip was sparked by discussion on the weaving list on quilt.net about how to warp rigid heddle looms.

Someone had asked a question about the older rigid heddle looms that have teeth instead of apron rods.  They kind of look like a teeny tiny sectional warp or a comb on the back.

A wonderful person on that list gave a really informed description about how to warp a rigid heddle loom, and reading her post made me realize that you could easily retrofit these looms with a bit of dowelling and some nylon cord.

Simply cut off the dowel to the length of your back beam and your front beam, and then you can either take off the combs or cover them up with cardboard, and attach the dowel using lark’s head knots and some strong nylon cord to that back beam and voila! – you’ve got an apron beam.

Which is wonderful because it’s easy to tie on to, and because it will bring the beam up closer to the back of the heddles so you have less waste while weaving.  Most modern rigid heddle looms do use apron rods so you could put an apron rod on the front and the back and up-grade your older rigid heddle loom.

Musical interlude

Next up we have an interview with Betty Davenport.  Now I knew that I had to get her for the show when I started researching rigid heddle weaving.  I looked in the Handwoven Index and every time I found an article about rigid heddle weaving that really intrigued me, like how to weave double weave, how to weave fine threads, it was written by Betty Davenport.

SM  Welcome to the show Betty, and I’m so glad that you could speak with us today.

BD  Thank you for asking me to come.  I’m really excited about telling about rigid heddle weaving.

SM  So how did you first get started with weaving?

BD  I’ve always sewn, I’m basically a fabric-aholic, I collect fabric I can’t help it, and way back when I realized that I could make fabric by weaving it – that was just it!  It wasn’t until I was married and had time and money that I could really get into weaving.  For several years I was trying to do it from a book, I made an inkle loom from a Lily Mills brochure, made a frame loom and did a couple of tapestries, from Nell Znamierowski’s Step-by-Step Weaving, and then eventually a group of us got together in the Tri-Cities, Washington, where I was living. 

A friend of mine went to Convergence in San Francisco, and I also was there.  I was looking for instructions for making a spinning wheel.  My friend came back with information of this rigid heddle loom, and there was a teacher Suzanne Gaston-Voute, in Vancouver, BC who taught, so we arranged for her to come to the Tri-Cities.  She had just moved from Minneapolis, MN

She had used the rigid heddle which was made in Germany in her work I Switzerland and so when she came to Minneapolis, she was importing the Kirscher Looms and some of her students decided that they could build a better loom, and that became Beka Looms.

And then she moved to Vancouver, BC and so that was convenient for us to have her for a workshop.  We were all beginners.  She taught us these patterns using a pick up stick – it totally fascinated me that you could do some pattern weaving on this simple frame loom.

SM  So can you describe what some of these patterns looked like?

BD  They are based on a three over one float.  The harness loom names for these are Barley Corn, Bronson Lace, and how it works is the rigid heddle is a hold and slot heddle.  So, a thread goes through a hole and the next thread goes through a slot, a hole, slot, hole, slot.

Well, the threads in the slots are not controlled by anything.  As you raise and lower the heddle the hole threads go up and then the hole threads go down, and that makes your two sheds.

If you insert a stick behind the heddle picking up certain slot threads, you can turn the stick on end and make a pattern shed.  Push the stick to the back of the loom and you can still use the heddle for basic up and down plain weave.

SM  So, when you’re doing your pattern, you don’t even have to remove the stick.

BD  That’s right!

SM  Ah – that’s much nicer than regular pick up!

BD  That’s the secret!

That makes weft floats.  You can also make warp floats by bringing the stick forward and raising the heddle and that makes that slot thread float over the surface, then.

So we have the combination of being able to make weft floats and warp floats and that’s the whole basis of weaving patterns on the rigid heddle loom.

SM  You have a book that’s out of print called Textures and Patterns for the Rigid Heddle loom.  I was just amazed at the diverse amount of patterning you can do with a rigid heddle without a lot of pick up using this technique.

BD  That’s true.

SM  Things like Bronson Lace I would never have guessed you could do on a rigid heddle.

BD  It is very easy.  And you are not restricted to a number of harnesses.  This is my study for the Certificate of Excellence from the Handweaver’s Guild of America.  And I received the certificate in 1978, which was the second series of judging.

SM  So this book is your notebook for what is now the equivalent of a level two.

BD  Yes, at that time it was all one program.  You submitted level one and level at the same time.  My only worry was, would they consider a rigid a “real” loom?  Because some of my weaving friends say “When are you going to get a “real” loom?”

And I thought I’m going to show that you can do a lot of things with this simple frame loom.

SM  So did you do all your work on the COE on a rigid heddle loom?

BD  No, because you can’t.

SM  Oh, right, some of that requires four shafts.

BD  I did as much as I could.

And then that was why my study was exploring how many different weaves and patterns that I could do.  And basically if I had had a computer drawdown program it would have been a lot easier!

I wove yards and yards and yards of samples, methodically picking up one up one down on the slot threads and then weaving different series of weft shots.  One up two down, one up two down.

SM  In a way this book is the Marguerite Davison for rigid heddle weaving.

BD  And so I did come up with some things that hadn’t been published. Before my book, the only information was a few patterns published by Kirscher Looms and taught by Suzanne Gaston-Voute.

SM  You’ve done a lot of innovative things with the rigid heddle loom.  What inspires you about this very simple loom?

BD  One of it was the friend who said “When are you going to get a “real” loom?”

Okay – I can weave clothing.  I can weave blankets.  I can weave a lot of things.  That was part of my incentive was to prove I could weave clothing and larger items.  It turns out you can be more creative.  If you want to weave a blanket and you have a 20” loom, you need to weave strips, and put them together.  If you’re going to do that, you might as well vary the strips instead of having the same colours go from selvedge to selvedge.

Things like that.

SM  I’ve heard artists talk about artistic constraints…

BD  Exactly!

SM  …making creative arise.  So your artistic constraint was a very simple loom and that spurred you on to see how far you could run with it…

BD  That’s right.  And the other thing, making clothing, many weavers say they need a 48” wide loom to weave fabric for clothing.  Well back when I started sewing the fabric was 36” wide and folded in half that’s 18”.  And that’s what the result is on a 20” loom with draw in – about 18” width fabric.

So, that was no problem.  You just make more panels to go around and join it with seams.  I liked to join my seams with an invisible needlework?  It runs like like another weft - with the needle you pick up the turn on each selvedge and weave them together.

If you have good selvedges and it’s plain weave it’s almost invisible.
It’s a way of instead of having a bulky seam, it makes a nice invisible seam.

SM  Have you played around much with decorative joins?

BD  Oh, there have been occasions I’ve embroidered over.

SM  So, what’s the  most exciting thing you’ve woven on a rigid heddle loom?

BD   Oh, that’s a difficult question!

One of them would be one of the finished pieces for the Certificate of Excellence.  It’s like a 28” square, and it’s in a waffle weave that changes in size…

SM  The waffles?

BD  The colour gradates, green to red, and I had to overdye my existing yarn to get that gradation. 

SM  One of the things that intrigued me from your Handwoven articles is you talk about weaving with two heddles on a rigid heddle loom.

BD  Yes.

SM  How did that come about?

BD  Suzanne Gaston-Voute had figured out how to do double weave as did David Xenakis in South Dakota.  They both came to it individually using two heddles and two pick up sticks you can weave two plain weave layers.  You can exchange layers to bring the lower layer to the surface and then you have to change the pick up sticks.

One of the things I did for a Handwoven article was lace weaves on top with a plain weave on the bottom ?????????

You can do all the double weave layers – joined on one edge, or tubular or joined in the centre – that would open out into a four pieces – joined in the centre.

Doing tubular you do dolls.  You know, shape them on the loom.  Small projects.  I wouldn’t try to weave a really large piece that way, but it does open up a lot of possibilities.

Another thing that’s fun with two heddles is Summer and Winter.  Summer and Winter has a plain weave background and the supplementary warp floats over three and under one.  There’s a way of threading the two heddles to achieve this that’s in Hands On Rigid Heddle Weaving.  Then the pattern sheds are manipulated with the pick up stick behind the heddles. 

If you want to do something really interesting, I graphed a design out on graph paper, and each square of the graph paper represents four threads or two threads of the slot threads that are manipulated by the pattern stick.

Then you can just read across the graph paper and pick up the appropriate threads for your pattern with the pick up stick and you’re not limited by the number of harnesses on your loom.

Or if you don’t really like to re-pick every time, you can just do a simple two block pattern, but each time you change the block you would need to insert the second stick to pick up for that.  The first one can stay in place at the back of the loom.

I call it pick up stick colouring.  Some people get really challenged, like David Xenakis, who does really intricate designs, which means picking up after every fourth shot, changing your pick up stick.  Or, doing something really simple where you don’t have to change your pick up stick very often.

SM  And then of course there are the ethnic traditional weavers who pick up all over the place and create very intricate designs.

BD  Yes, that’s something else!

SM  Well, we should mention your other book which is still in print – Hands On Rigid Heddle Weaving.

BD  Yes.

SM  That’s a wonderful introduction to rigid heddle weaving.  It’s actually a book I recommend to students.  How did that come about?

BD  If I remember correctly, Linda Ligon at Handwoven approached me about it.  I spent about almost a year putting everything I knew about rigid heddle weaving in plain weave in the book.

It is totally plain weave because I have the other book on the patterns.  It includes hand controlled lace weaves, leno, and brocade, which are not included in four harness weaving books.

So that’s one of the valuable things about Hands On Rigid Heddle Weaving is that harness loom weavers can get a lot out of it also, because of the hand controlled weaves I have in there and a lot about log cabin, which is plain weave but can look really intricate by changing the colours and texture of the yarn.

SM  One of the things I’ve been noticing as I learned more about rigid heddle weaving is that the lessons that I learn make me understand better what I’m doing better on a multi-shaft loom.

BD  Good!

SM  It’s like understanding the fabric at it’s most basic level.

BD  That has been my feeling also.  I was learning to weave parallel with rigid heddle and a four harness loom.  There was one day I decided I had woven something in Bronson Lace and I graphed out the design on graph paper and I thought “Surely I can do this on my harness loom?”  It would have taken some 40 some harnesses!

And that really made me sit up and take notice!!!!
I think weaving so close to the threads actually manipulating the threads to get what you want has helped me understand weave structure faster than weaving on a harness loom.  Some people never quite understand that if you stand on this treadle these harnesses are going to come up.  Therefore they’re stuck with weaving from directions.

I’ve always felt the freedom of utilizing the weave structure and if I’m going to do it on a harness loom, then I can write the pattern to achieve that and I think it comes through more with a rigid heddle so closely with the threads.

SM  I’ve been struggling to understand block diagrams but when you’re looking at the rigid heddle loom and the pick up stick, it’s very clear what your blocks are.

BD  um-hum

SM  So that’s really helped me.  That’s one of the things that I mean when I say I’ve gotten a lot out of reading these books.

Getting back briefly to two heddles – have you ever done anything like twills on a rigid heddle loom?

BD  Yes.  David Xenakis in South Dakota self-published on using three heddles and a pick up stick – you can weave twill.

SM  Like a regular 2:2 twill?

BD  Yes.

SM  Oh wow – three heddles!

BD  It’s a challenge…

SM  Well, my understanding of adding that second heddle is that it kind of makes the rigid heddle loom like a three harness loom.

I notice that you do krokbragd on a rigid heddle loom.

BD  Yes, with two heddles or you can do it with one heddle and a second way is string heddles on a dowel rod, you know, if you don’t want to buy a second heddle.  And then the third one, shed, is the pick up stick.

SM  We should explain briefly, string heddles for folks who have a rigid heddle loom and don’t want to buy that second heddle and want to play with some of these techniques.

So, the string heddle, is that you basically have a dowel rod and you have little loops of string and you run them underneath the warp threads you want to control with the dowel rod and then you loop them over the dowel rod.

BD  And you would want to only do this with the slot threads because they’re the ones that are free to move out of position.

That works for something maybe in a small section or, I have done krokbragd rugs with the two heddles.  It worked.  It wasn’t beaten very tight so it’s more of a wall hanging than a rug.

SM  Right.  Maybe a small rug for the doll house for the dolls you created on the rigid heddle loom. 

I know that a lot of knitters have become interested in rigid heddle looms recently with new portables coming out, like the Ashford Knitter’s Loom and Schacht has the Flip loom.  That would be a way for a person to get a loom, like you did, initially, and then play with it for quite a bit before you either decided weaving was not for you or you wanted to move on to – dare I say it….

BD  …a “real” loom?

SM  What advice would you give to someone who wants to start with rigid heddle weaving?  What should they look for in a loom?

BD  Well, I think all the rigid heddle looms on the market are pretty well made.  One of the things I would look for is if the company offers heddles in more than one size.

Generally a heddle that comes with the loom is at 10 ends per inch.  It’s nice to also have one at 8 ends and 12 ends per inch so you can use a variety of yarns.

SM  And you also, in some of your articles, have talked about weaving finer than that by combining heddles to effectively double your set.

BD  Oh yes, double heddles – two heddles can be threaded twice as dense as a single heddle.  I have done that quite a bit with the finer yarns.

 

SM  So if you had two 10 dent heddles you could weave at 20 ends per inch.

BD  That’s correct.  So it’s very similar to the same threading used for double weave only it’s utilizing every hole and every slot in both heddles instead of spacing it out.

All those threadings are in Hands On Rigid Heddle Weaving.

SM  So what else would you advice someone who was thinking about playing around with rigid heddle weaving.

BD  I would advise getting my book.

SM  We should also mention your video.  From Victorian Video there is Rigid Heddle Weaving.  Is that a companion to the book Rigid Heddle Weaving or was that it’s own venture?

BD  The video was published the year before I wrote Hands On Rigid Heddle Weaving.  I go through the basics – weaving up and down and beating with the rigid heddle, and then I illustrate some pattern weaves and do a project using one of the pattern weaves.  It does give an over all of the possibilities of the loom.

SM  Do you think a teacher is necessary or are there enough good books out there?

BD  I think that depends on the individual.  Some people can learn very well from a book, and some people really need side-by-side instruction.

SM  What are you currently working on in your own studio?

BD  I also own a 16 harness AVL loom.  I have a 48” wide warp on it to weave a throw out of alpaca.  It’s an 8 harness turned twill.  I did weave on my rigid heddle this summer, fabric for a vest because it happened to be the right number of ends per inch for the rigid heddle, and a small project.  So I do still weave on both depending on what the yarn is, what the purpose is, I like the flexibility of having different tools.

SM  The rigid heddle really shines when you start weaving with things like hand spun because there is very little loom waste.

BD  That’s true.  I’d like to mention that one of the biggest influences in my weaving has been my many trips to Peru and Bolivia.  Not only having woven on a rigid heddle so close to the threads, you know, being able to manipulate them, the indigenous weavers all use their fingers to pick up pattern.  It’s very intricate.  But I’ve been most influenced by the stripes, and I really like to weave fabric that’s striped.  I just say glorious stripes – the pieces I’ve brought back in stripes are just wonderful!  I’m always influenced by those.

I just enjoy that more than block weaves which is a more graphic pattern.

SM  Well, yes, it’s not the tools that make a weaver, it’s the desire and the artistry that they bring to the work.

BD  That’s true!  A bigger better loom does not make you a better weaver.

SM  Exactly.

BD  I think I proved that through the Certificate of Excellence and articles in Handwoven that you can do quality weaving with a simple loom.

SM  So, what’s next for you?

BD  In this phase of my life, I feel I need to really work on weaving up all my ideas and using up a lot of this yarn that I’ve got over 30 years.

So whatever I do, I try to do with what I have on hand.  One of the things I’ve done over the last couple of years is weave queen sized blankets on my big loom, because that should use up a lot of wool yarn.  But it’s hardly made a dent.

SM  Darn!  That was my plan!

I was going to weave blankets and reduce my stash…

BD  And then I have all this fine silk that I’ve collected over the years.  So, I’m not at a loss for things to do.

SM  Well, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule and telling us about some of the wonderful possibilities with rigid heddle weaving.

BD  Well, you’re welcome.

I hope it inspires new weavers to give it a try, because they’re not intimidated because it’s not a “real” loom.  It is a real loom. 

Musical interlude

 

And now, a quick book review of Hands On Rigid Heddle Weaving.

This was written by Betty Linn Davenport, our guest today.  It was published by Interweave Press, so it has all of the beautiful pictures and really clear line drawings that you would expect from Interweave Press.

It’s an excellent primer for getting started with rigid heddle weaving and it’s actually a wonderful reference even if you’re doing other types of weaving, because after she explains the basics of warping and weaving on the rigid heddle loom, she talks about other techniques that you can do on a rigid heddle loom, but that you can do on many types of looms.

Like, hand controlled weaves.  Brooks Bouquet, leno, Danish medallion, Spanish lace.  She gives weaving hints from her years of experience playing with all of these things.

She talks about tapestry.  There’s a little brief introduction to doing tapestry.

Talks about using thrums.  There’s just a wealth of knowledge in here in the back there is even a description colour theory.  Just brief, but very well done with a colour sphere instead of just a colour circle.

She talks about finishing and in fact, one of the reasons I picked up this book and put it in my own library, is that she talks about an invisible stitch which you can use to join panels in a way that is almost impossible to see.

Basically you’re picking up the loops at the selvedges where the weft turns and goes back in, and weaving a thread up warp-wise through those loops, creating a virtual warp that will let you panel together say, strips that you wove on a rigid heddle loom, into an afghan or into clothing.

Very neat technique.

She also talks about weaving with two heddles in this book.  On page 99 there’s a neat little diagram of how that works.

She talks about inlay and transparencies.

In this book she starts you out with the basics you need and then gives you tastes of all the different techniques you can go into.

She doesn’t go, for example, terribly in depth into tapestry, but she gives you the basics.  She lets you get a taste and get started and if you wanted to continue with tapestry on a rigid heddle loom you could certainly find other books, that would go into that subject in depth.

She shows how to make clothing from cloth you’ve generated on your rigid heddle loom.  She’s got several interesting pieces in here, mostly shirts.  There was a couple that were  somewhat dated, the book was published in 1987, so there’s a vest that might not thrill me, but then there were a couple other shirts that would have looked great, even today.

She shows how to use texture when you’re doing plain weave.  On page 34 she has some placemats that she wove with thick and thin cotton, so you can see how your choice of weft really impacts the final piece.

And on page 31 she shows how set affects yarn.  She’s got an interesting series of closely set to loosely set fabrics.

I will tell you that I think this book was strongly influenced by her experiences doing the COE because as a person working on the COE, a lot of the topics I had questions about are actually covered in this book.

I recommend Hands On Rigid Heddle Weaving.  Great if you’re just beginning weaving, and are playing with a rigid heddle loom, and I bought it for my library even though I primarily use other looms because it does give you a sampling of a whole bunch of techniques.

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And now I’d like to review the Flip loom from Schacht.  This is another in the portable rigid heddle looms that have recently come out, the other being the Ashford Knitters’ Loom that I reviewed in an earlier episode.

So, my first impression out of the box was it was a very sturdy and strong loom.  It’s all wood construction except for some TexSolv threads for the apron rods and some plastic gears.

But it feels very solid, like a “real” loom, not a toy.

The most intriguing and interesting thing about the Flip loom is that it’s designed from the get-go to work with two heddles.

Now many rigid heddle looms like the Kromski’s can have little blocks added to make it possible to use two heddles with it, and you might be able to figure out a way to rig up the Knitter’s Loom to use two heddles, I have not tried that.  But the Flip loom handles two heddles elegantly.

I talked to Jane Patrick who worked with her husband Barry in designing the loom, and gave him a lot of feedback in what she thought ought to be in the loom, and she said she loves weaving on a rigid heddle, and she loves teaching rigid heddle weaving.

I borrowed one that had two heddles so that I could play around with some of the cool things you can do once you have two heddles.

There were a lot of nice little details in this loom.  It comes with the equipment you need for direct warping.  Basically clamps to hold the loom down and another clamp for the peg.

It comes with a really nice threader with a wooden handle.

Everything you need to get started weaving, except the yarn, is in the bag.  It’s all pre-assembled.  All you need to do is put the apron rods on using the TexSolv that’s included.

The 15” weaving width is great.  It really opens up the ability for this loom to be more than a scarf loom.

You can make dish towels, placemats, in fact traditional Japanese garments are made with 13 to 15” wide fabric so if you’re into kimonos, you could even weave that on something like this.

The Flip loom also comes in 20 and 25” widths, if you want to weave a bit wider.

Now when I was attaching the apron rods to the beams, I found putting the TexSolv through the holes a bit fiddly, but my 3 year old son was able to do it readily so I made him do all the rest.

I really liked the TexSolv string.  I have every confidence that this will not break.

The instruction manual that came with the loom was minimal but what was there was clear and easy to understand.  It was very straight forward.

I liked the basic weaving theory and the glossary, and the instructions on how to do warp and weft calculations.

There are some add-ons that you can get for this loom.  It is already pre-set to use two heddles which is really nice.  You don’t have to add any blocks or anything.  There is space for two heddles from the get-go.

You can order an optional stand if you don’t want to weave with it in your lap.

Heddles are available as 8, 10 or 12 dent versions. 

One thing that I didn’t see on the website that I wish was available was a bag.  It would be really nice to have a sturdy carrying bag that you could order and carry your Flip loom around with you.

To try it out, I picked up some 5/2 cotton out of my stash, unmercerized, and warped it up for dishtowels.

And I put both 8 dent heddles on so my effective epi was 16 dent.  And that made a really nice cloth with the 5/2 unmercerized cotton.

And that is one of the benefits of having two heddles, is you can weave twice as fine as you can with one heddle.  If I had tried to sley the 5/2 mercerized cotton with a single 8 dent heddle, I’d either have had to double up threads and made more of a basket weave, or I would have had really loose and sleazy cloth.

There are sturdy pins that when you unfold it, screw in, so it’s really really strong.

Reviewing this loom does bring comparisons to my only other rigid heddle experience, which is the Ashford Knitter’s Loom and I would say that the Knitter’s Loom is more portable, in that it only weighs 6 pounds and it’s much smaller in terms of width and length.

But the Flip loom is more of a real loom.  If you wanted something that’s extensible to different techniques with the double heddles, if you wanted something that you could put on a floor stand, if you want something that is just stronger than the Knitter’s Loom, there you go.

If portability is your main issue, then perhaps the Knitter’s Loom would be a better choice because it is a bit lighter and a bit smaller.

The Flip Loom has a 15” weaving width as I mentioned before.  When it is fully open it is 22” wide by 28” long.

When you fold it, it is 22” wide by 18” long, so it does get fairly compact.  While I was weaving it, the action was very smooth.  There’s a rounded bit where you push the heddles under to get one shed, and then you pull it up.  So weaving it was a very smooth action, very nice.

Some things I played with on this loom were double weave – weaving double width.  Betty Davenport had a really neat article in Handwoven a couple years back, that explained how to do this.

And of course the fine thread weaving.

And it would also be great for knitting yarns, regular plain weave weaving.

A lot of functionality, not a huge amount of cost, and portable enough that you could travel with it quite easily.  I haven’t tried putting the Flip Loom under an aircraft seat, but it might fit.  It would certainly fit in the overhead compartment.  So you could fly with this loom.

Overall, I think it’s a great little loom.  I would recommend this loom to people who are not quite ready to jump off into a multi-shaft loom – like four shafts, eight shafts – but want to try out weaving with a bit more capabilities than simply plain weave.

Musical interlude

Coming up we have a promo for a new knitting podcast.  This is by Christa Giles who’s a very talented and interesting lady.

She did the original Iweave graphic that we were using in the early days for WeaveCast. 

She leads a very interesting life.  One of the things she’s in to besides knitting, is adult sized hula hoops.  If you’ve ever tried to use a hula hoop and it hasn’t worked for you, it’s probably because it’s the wrong size!

And this lady makes hula hoops out of irrigation tubing, like you’d use for sprinklers.  Very very cool and interesting lady.

So let’s take a listen to her promo and see what she’s starting up.

Hi there, my name is Christa Giles and I’d like to invite you to listen to the Christa Knits podcast.  Every episode I’ll be talking to emerging knitting designers.

We’re just getting started publishing their patterns on-line or for their local yarn stores.

I’ll also have material coming in from other podcasters who may or may not be knitters, but they have interesting things to say about knitting, and the role it plays in their lives.

Each episode I’ll also be providing some answers to the ultimate question – if someone was to knit you the perfect gift, what would it be?

To find my podcast, search for Christa Knits on iTunes, or visit http://podcast.christagiles.com

My name is spelt Christa Giles.  I’ll talk to you soon.

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WeaveCast is brought to you by the generous support of it’s donating listeners.

This episode was sponsored by Ruth, who sent in a cheque with a handwoven card – is that classy, or what?

Beverly, from England.  Gene, Linda, who also sent me some great interview suggestions, thank you.  Astrid, Ushe, Angela, Christine, Elizabeth, Linda, Nancy, Sherrilee, Rita, Janet, Gloria, Darla, Kathleen, Alice, Cynthia T, Matt, Ruth and Cynthia H.

You guys are *awesome*!

We were able to get enough funds to pay for the new transcription machine, so transcripts will continue going forward and we have some extra money in the WeaveCast coffers to pay for up-coming expenses.  Thank you so much!

I would also like to thank the Handweavers Guild of America for helping us up grade our telephone interview equipment.  It’s an honour and I look forward to bringing you great interviews from weavers all over the world.

I’m going to play you out with a song called Weave the Yarn by Mary Knickle.  Information about her and her music is available up at http://www.maryknickle.com  Link on the show notes.

I contacted Mary to get permission to play the song on WeaveCast and she sent me a nice email with some background about the song.  She said “I was travelling in England had just read Mist of Avalon, the story of King Arthur told from the point of view of the women. 

Often they were in the castle weaving, embroidering and spinning.  

Although the story in the song took a different turn and had nothing to do with King Arthur, the image of the spinning wheel going around and around stuck in my head and gave me the chorus.

You can almost see the wheel spin when you hear the chorus.

In the song, a woman tells the story as she weaves the fine yarn to embroider into her wedding dress.” 

I knew this song would be wonderful for WeaveCast, not only because of it’s theme, but because it’s a wonderful song.  I tend to listen to the songs on this show at least six times before I post them, just through editing passes, and if I can listen to a song six times and still be eager to hear it again, I know it’s good.

So, without further ado, here is Weave the Yarn by Mary Knickle.

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