I really love the texture that draft patterns add to weavings and today I am sharing an easy pattern for weaving small diamonds. For this pattern I tried a few different yarns; fingering weight, worsted weight, and bulky. I found that the bulky weight yarn did the best with showing the pattern, the thinner yarns bunched up on itself and the pattern didn’t show as well. If I were to use a thicker thread for my warp and a thin thread for the weft the pattern would show much better because the thicker warp would hold the weft in place better. Just something to consider when you try this.
This is the sketch for the pattern, each diamond will be woven in rows of 1, 3, 5, 3, 1. They will be staggered next to each other as the pattern repeats.
Here are the steps for the pattern:
step 1| I always start with at least 1 or 2 rows of the plain weave to lock in my threads. Here you can see my row of worsted weight yarn in yellow, followed by a row of fingering weight yarn in pink. Each colored row begins and ends with 2 rows of the plain weave and have the small diamonds pattern in between the lock rows.
step 2| taking my peach color I begin the small diamond pattern following the pattern under 1 warp thread, over 5 warp threads, under 1 warp thread, over 1 warp thread, then repeat all the way across your warp threads. This is making the bottom of a diamond along with the middle of the diamond next to it.
step 3| on the return pass, this row will follow under 1, over 3, under 1, over 3, repeating until you reach the end of the warp threads. The 3 over will align with the middle of the 5 over in the previous row and then align with the 1 over in the previous row. See my pattern sketch above to get a better idea of the alignment.
step 4| for the next row reverse your pattern from step 2; weave under 1 warp, over 1 warp, under 1, over 5, and repeat until you reach the end. The 1 over and 5 over will align in the middle with the 3 over in the previous row. So some diamonds are finished with the 1 over and some are in the middle with the 5 over.
step 5| for this row you will again weave under 1, over 3, under 1, over 3 aligning again in the middle of the previous row
step 6| for this row weave under 1 warp thread, over 5, under 1, over 1, then repeat all the way across your warp threads. You now have a few completed diamonds that should build in rows as 1, 3, 5, 3, 1.
step 7| repeat the pattern as much as you like, I then recommend weave 2 rows of plain weave to lock up the warp threads again.
I really wanted to make a video of this, because it feel complicated when reading the steps, but I ran out of time and light. So hopefully next week I’ll have a video with this technique.
Have you added draft patterns like this to your weaves? Do you like the easy texture they add? I really like them because if you can plain weave, then you can certainly weave these patterns, the only issue is wrapping your head around the indirectness of weaving like this. The pattern needs time to build.
If you’re interested in more draft patterns, check these out.
Happy Weaving!
Kate
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