Weaving Technique || Making Angles (and Waves)

Isn’t it funny how a simple or easy technique can have such a large visual impact on your design? Well today’s technique is one of those. I recently received a question on how to make a slight angle in a weave, and it’s actually really easy to do (and fun if you ask me). And I couldn’t talk about how to weave an angle without also talking about weaving waves (so two for one?).  I’ve probably been listening to too much 90s music lately, but another title for this post could have been Push it Real Good. You’ll see why in the steps below:

step 1| weave a few rows of plain weave straight across your warp threads. This is kind of a base for your angle.

step 2| using your hand, push the weft threads up (or down) the warp threads in the angle shape you want. You may have to push one row at a time, if your wefts are tight, but they will move. And boom, you’re done! Well for the most part, of course there are some more tips I have for you…

step 3| you will probably want a straight edge to the angle (top and bottom). To make this I wove one row straight across the warp threads (add as many rows as you like, and it can be the same color or whatever you want to do).

step 4| I now have a gap between my white thread and my angled pink thread, so I’m going to fill that gap using the plain weave. I plain weave back and forth, decreasing my rows as they “hit” the pink thread. Using the pink thread as a guide, allows you to fill in the gap without thinking too hard about it, which is really nice.

step 5| my base shape of the weave is established with an angle, so now I can continue to plain weave whatever colors and shapes and follow the angle as I go. And when you want to stop the angle, just weave a filler row, like I did in step 4.

Don’t feel limited either, you can definitely add different shapes and colors while doing the angle too. If you missed it, I wrote about changing colors in the middle of your weave here.

For weaving waves, here are the steps:

step 1| just like the steps above, weave a few rows of plain weave

step 2| use your hand to push the weft threads up (or down) the warp threads in the shape of a wave. I just put one in for an example, but you can make it wave all the way across your weave.

step 3| to add your straight edge, again weave a row straight across, under your waves.

step 4| fill in your gaps between the straight row and the waved rows with the plain stitch, using the waves as a template to know when to decrease your rows. Sorry I didn’t have a visual for this step, I included the wave shape last minute since it’s so similar making an angle, but you just fill in the gap the same way.

step 5| with the base shape of the weave established you can continue weaving, following the waves you have created.

Those of you who have tried my free pattern already know about making shapes by pushing weft threads.

Have you added angles or waves to your weaves before? If so, did you do it in a different way? There are many ways to weave and get similar outcomes, which is one of my favorite things about weaving.

Happy Weaving!

Kate

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