Back to Basics || How to Weave in New Threads

I get asked the question of how to weave in new threads a lot, so I wanted to share with those of you who are newer to weaving and unsure how to weave in a new thread. I had covered this for circular weaving, but was surprised I didn’t cover this for normal weaving yet. Well here it is:

My simplest answer to this question is just add the new thread next to the previously woven thread. This is the same for whether you’re weaving in a new color or continuing the same color after your thread ran out. And if you didn’t realize already you can weave in one spot of your warp threads, then weave in a completely different spot and later fill in the empty warp threads. Weaving is really flexible and that is one of the many reasons why I love it.  Don’t be afraid to experiment with how you weave, it will help figure out what works best for you and will lead you to your own style quicker.

In these pictures I have woven a few different parts of my weave and now I want to add a yellow yarn next to the middle section of white I have already woven. I weave the yellow thread in, continuing the over/under pattern from the white thread and leave a 2 – 3 inch tail in the back of the weave. This yellow thread is thicker then my white thread, so the plain weave pattern won’t match up perfectly in all rows and that is ok.  I just like to try to continue the pattern as much as possible to lock in my weft threads. If you’re weaving a really thick yarn next to a thinner yarn, don’t worry about matching the over/under pattern (or whatever pattern you’re weaving in), just add the threads in the best way possible.

After I have woven all the rows I wanted to in yellow, then I leave another 2 – 3 inch tail in the back of the weave. Flipping the weave over you can see that the two colors just sit next to each other. I then take my yarn tail and pull it through the back of the same yellow woven area to secure it. Later when I fill in my empty warp threads, the structure of my weave will keep these wefts next to each other and the space between the white and yellow won’t show.

Let’s say you were to weave a large square of the white color and a large square of the yellow color next to each other, with both colors stopping at the same warp threads for 5 or more rows. This will definitely create a space, even when you weave across all the warps above and below these two square blocks. If you want the space as part of your design, then great you’re done. If you don’t want a space showing then read here for two ways I have eliminated gaps in my weaves.

Here, in this above picture, is the back of one of my more colorful weaves. Each color is woven next to the other. As you can see I’ve made organic shapes that increase and decrease over a few rows. Since I don’t have a huge vertical block of a color, I don’t have to do anything special to secure my wefts. The same goes for when you weave a triangle, you usually won’t see spaces between your triangle and the surrounding colors because of the increase and decrease of the weft along the warps. However, there are exceptions to this. For example if your warps have a large space between then, or if you are weaving the triangle with two rows for each increase, etc.

I also have some other back to basic posts that can be helpful:

• Plain Weave Basics – practicing even tension
• Warping a frame loom

If you’re new to weaving and are struggling with some concept or even if you’re not a beginner and have a question, let me know in the comments below and I’ll help if I can.

Happy Weaving!

Kate

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