After sharing how to warp a circular loom, I wanted to share a free weaving pattern with you all! (oh and if you don’t have a circular loom, I have instructions on how to warp an embroidery hoop here!)
Since we will may be using different sized looms, I will tell you how I made my weave but make any needed adjustments for your own weave as needed. For example, if I group six strings, but you’re weaving on less warp threads you may want to group only four or three.
The supplies I used are a black cotton warp thread (that is sold in the shop) and a worsted weight white cotton yarn. See the Shop this Post below for more details. This will be a long post, so let’s jump right in:
step 1| using your white yarn, plain weave (over 1, under 1) six rows around the inside of the circle.
step 2| take your yarn thread and cross over the front of a grouping of warp threads. I brought my thread over the front of 6 warp strings.
step 3| from around the front of the warp threads, pull the yarn around the back and across the front again. Pulling the string tight so it makes a grouping of the warp threads.
step 4| while holding the thread tight with one hand, use your tapestry needle to pull the thread through the back of the weave under the plain stitch row.
step 5| pull tight to secure the thread.
step 6| now continue with the next grouping of warp threads, looping the yarn around and securing through the plain weave row. Repeating until you have grouped all warp threads.
step 7| plain weave six rows. You’ll notice that with your warp threads grouped, the black warp threads make an interesting pattern in your white weft threads.
step 8| in this row we’re going to loop around the warp threads that were further apart due to our first grouping. So in my weave I’m going to loop my white weft thread around starting at the two warp threads on the right side of the gap and going across to the two warp threads on the left side of the gap. Again, while holding the thread tight with one hand, use your tapestry needle to pull the thread through the back of the weave under the plain stitch row. Then pulled tight to secure the thread.
Step 9| after closing the gap with a loop around, I then plain wove between my next four warp threads and did another loop around my next four warp threads at the gap. Continue in this pattern around the row.
step 10| next we’re going to add some accent rows. To do this I cut a long piece of string from my black warp thread spool. I cut it long enough to go around my circle weave five times. This was a little more length then I needed, but it’s better to have a little too much string then not enough.
step 11| I held my black string next to my white weft thread, leaving an extra 2 inches of the black string in the back of my weave, to tuck in later. With the black and white weft threads held together, plain weave three rows.
step 12| In the next row we’ll create our original groupings again. To do this I looped around the same six warp threads as in the first grouping. Then while holding the thread tight with one hand, I used my tapestry needle to pull the thread through the back of the weave under the plain stitch row. Then pulled tight to secure the thread.
step 13| after that row, I separated my black weft string from the white weft string, secured the black string in the back of my weave and trimmed the end.
step 14| using just the white weft thread, I wove three rows of plain weave.
step 15| then, still using the white thread I wove five rows of the twill weave (over 2 under 1). Since the twill weave goes over more warp threads then it goes under, more of the warp threads are hidden by the weft and the woven rows take on a different texture.
step 16| at the end of those five twill weave rows, I secured my white thread in the back of my weave and trimmed the end.
step 17| taking another piece of black thread from the spool, weave one row of plain weave around the last row of white weft thread. This is a really thin row of the black thread, but it gives an interesting pop of definition to the white thread.
step 18| To finish the weave, we’re going to put a boarder around our weave by twining two pieces of the white yarn. To make this boarder, cut two long threads of the white yarn. I cut my threads so that I would have 9.5 inches of hanging thread in both the start and the finish of the yarn, then it took 19 inches to go around my weave. So in total I had two strings that were 38 inches long each. You may have to modify your string lengths depending on the size of your weave.
step 19| taking the two long threads, I tied them together in a knot leaving a 9.5 inch tail. This knot is temporary, so don’t tie it too tight. It will be used as an anchor for twining the threads.
Note: my picture of my anchor knot shows a much shorter tail, but I adjusted it later after I realized I wanted a longer thread to hang down…and of course I forgot to take a picture of the longer thread tail (duh!).
step 20| bring one thread under the first warp thread (we’ll call this thread #1) and the other over the first warp thread (we’ll call it thread #2). You can see how the knot we tied is anchoring the threads around the warp, so that as we do our twining we don’t completely pull our threads out (which I’ve done before, it’s not fun).
step 21| next twist the two threads around each other (the twist will be in between the warp threads), then bring thread #1 over the next warp thread and thread #2 under the next warp thread. Twisting the threads before you move onto the next warp thread is what helps secure them, it also makes the twining effect. If you want more details on twining, check out this post here.
step 22| continue to twist the threads around your warp threads until you reach the warp thread where you started. Next untie your anchor knot and re-tie the beginning threads as a double knot in the front of your warp threads. Then tie a double knot in the back of those same warp threads with the ending weft threads. Doing this will give you a small knot that has a nice delicate look. Now you have four 9.5 inch threads hanging down as a delicate fringe.
Step 23| your weave is mostly complete, all you have to do is tuck and trim your yarn ends in the back of your weave to clean it up and finish the weave. You can find more information on securing yarn ends and finishing weave here.
If you give this pattern a try, please let me know. Also feel free to include links to a picture of your work. I would love to see how your weave turns out!
Happy Weaving!
Kate
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