Weave Experiments || Trying New Fibers & A Side-ways Weave

As promised, I’m sharing what I made with the fibers I bought from String Harvest. If you saw that post, you know that I got fibers that I don’t normally use. This was definitely a tricky weave, I had to try things, pull it apart, try something else (I’m looking at you paper raffia!), but in the end I like how it turned out. Oh and I purposely made this weave into a sideways weave, because some people have asked me about those.

I’m going to quickly explain a sideways weave, as you may know or guessed, they are weaves that are woven in the normal fashion (warp vertical and weft horizontal) but when finished they are turned onto their side (weft vertical and warp horizontal) and hung. The fun thing about sideways weaves is that you can experiment a lot with the fringe. You just need to determine which side you want your weave to hang from and then weave with the intention of your fringe being on the other side.

There are many ways to create the fringe. You can simply weave the plain weave and leave the threads long on your fringe side, or you could soumak, or even make your fringe with loops and rya loop knots. Side-ways weaves are a really fun way to mix up what you’re used to making.

To finish a side-ways weave, you can either tie off your warps and let them hang as part of the design, or you can double knot them and tuck then in the back of the weave and trim.

Now back to these new threads…

I really felt in over my head with this weave, but after a lot of work I got it to where I really like it. It’s really great to push yourself out of your comfort zone every so often and see what happens. I really loved these unique fibers and even though I did bring in a wool yarn that I use a lot, over all this weave was really something different for me. I especially love that thin silk wrapped paper thread. It really took on a volume and texture of it’s own.

I didn’t really have a set idea in mind with this weave, besides trying these new fibers and making a sideways weave, but once it was finished I noticed it really expresses how I’ve been feeling lately. For me it represents everything going on in life that we try to hold together.

I kept it brief on the sideways weave, because I feel it’s self explanatory, but let me know in the comments below if you have any questions or would like me to go into more detail.  Have you already made sideways weaves before?  Is there a technique that you like to use for the fringe?  Or have you experimented with a unique fiber lately?  I’d love to hear from you.

Happy Weaving!

Kate

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