Has this ever happened to you? You finish weaving up an area and then look back at it and it’s just not working for you. But what options do you have? You could unweave multiple rows that you just wove up…if that’s the case then it’s really tempting to just leave it. But I have good news! You can fix just a part of what you’ve already woven and I’m going to show you how.
While recently weaving my latest wall hanging, I ran into this issue. The top area that I wove looked just too blank. There was too much neutral without a lot of color. I really wanted to add in a different neutral color to just one corner, but to do it I’d have to unweave a lot of rows. Including rows that I didn’t want to change. So that meant, unweave a lot of rows then re-weave some. Not too fun.
My solution was to just cut where I wanted to add different thread. Yep, this is not for the faint of heart. But seriously, if you really don’t like how the weave looks, then why not change it.
Here are my tips for cutting into your weave:
- Cut just the weft thread that you want to remove, making sure not to cut the warp threads or any other weft thread.
- You’re going to need some yarn tails to tuck into the back of your weave, so try to cut in the middle of the area you want to un-weave.
- Un-weave in both directions taking out the yarn in as much of the space as you want un-woven, but take out at least enough yarn tail to secure it in the back of your weave.
- If you make a mistake, you can always unweave more of the original weft until you have enough to tuck in the back of the weave. Then take the same weft thread and weave a little more with it until you have just the amount of open area to weave the new thread.
To summarize my steps, here’s what I did:
step1|| taking my sharpest and smallest scissors, I carefully cut only the weft thread in what I felt was the middle of the area I wanted to unweave.
step2|| after cutting the weft, I un-wove it in both directions until I had cleared the area I wanted.
step3|| next I tucked both ends of the weft thread into the back of the weave.
step4|| I then filled the unwoven aread with my new thread.
It was pretty simple and made a lot of difference in my weave. I added in another neutral color, but it was just different enough from my original neutral thread that I felt it added interest to the overall design.
Have you ever run into this issue before? When I started out, I had set so many rules on myself, like come up with a perfect design and then weave it perfectly, but that’s not reality. I would have never thought cutting into a weave is “allowed”, but there really aren’t any rules. You’re making art, you’re doing this to enjoy it so do whatever you want, especially if it gets you the outcome you were hopeing for!
Happy Weaving!
For more fun, follow me here ->
