How Do you Keep Your Weave’s Sides Straight?

How do you keep your weave’s sides straight? How do I stop my weave sides from pulling in? I get these questions all the time and they are the question that everyone struggles with. This issue has to do with the amount of tension you’re weaving with & it is an issue for pretty much everyone who’s starting to weave. In fact, it also affects those who have been weaving for a while. I still have to stay conscious about my weaving tension and making sure that my sides aren’t pulling in. Luckily with time it gets easier to keep your weave sides straight.

As I mentioned, having your weave sides pull in, happens from your weft thread being pulled at a tighter tension then it previously was (you can brush up on weaving terms here). When most people start out weaving, they pull the weft thread through, between the warp threads. This tends to pull on the end warp thread so that some rows are pulled in more then other rows, causing the non-straight sides.

Instead of pulling on your weft threads, you need to place the weft threads between the warp threads. Here are a few tips to keeping an even tension while weaving:

Make weft hills

When weaving a new row, instead of pulling your weft thread through the warp threads, make weft hills. Weft hills are a loose woven row that you pack down one part at a time, forming hills that get smaller and smaller until all the weft is pushed down against the previous row. This allows you to place the woven row of yarn and keep a good tension that doesn’t pull on the end warp threads.

Pinch the weft thread at the start of a new row

Pinching your weft thread basically means that you hold about an 1/8^th of an inch of weft thread to the outside of the last warp thread, when you’re weaving a new row. Pinching the thread with one hand, while weaving the other side.  This makes it so you end up with a little weft thread loop. As you finish weaving your row, this weft loop will ease against the end warp thread, leaving the warp thread in place and maintaining a straight weave side.

Correct tight rows

Even following the first two steps, sometimes you’ll weave a tight row anyway. Before moving on to the next row, pull the weft thread a bit in the opposite direction until the row becomes the same tension as the previous rows. Keep in mind that you should correct tight rows as they happen, otherwise your weave will build on these rows and other rows will get tighter when you try to loosen the problem row.

Take care in how you tuck in end threads

I recently wrote up the perfect way to tuck end threads into the sides of your weaves. Sometimes when tucking in your end threads, it’s easy to pull a little too hard on the thread and cause mistakes in your weave. I always recommend that you check the front of your weave when you’re tucking in end threads, just to make sure you didn’t cause an issue in the front of the weave. Follow the steps herein order to keep your nice side tension while tucking end threads.

And P.S. Nothing is ever perfect, so don’t beat yourself up if you follow these steps and still have weave sides that aren’t perfectly straight. Just keep practicing and your weaves will look gorgeous!

Do you have your own tricks that you use to keep your weave’s sides straight? I’d love to hear about it.

Happy Weaving!

Kate

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