Textured Cloth

While industry is very good at weaving flat cloth, I love to weave cloth that is not flat. Surface texture and dimension can be achieved in several ways: —the weave structure of the cloth, shrinkage differential between wool and other fibers, overtwisted or “active” yarns, and differences in elasticity. Some examples of each type are shown below.

Silk warp and weft with stripes of merino/lycra.

Beige merino and white wool/tencel plaid

Grey merino and white wool/tencel; before and after shrinking

Doubleweave, with one painted silk layer and one grey wool layer

Doubleweave detail. Advancing twill threading, doubleweave tieup, and networked twill treadling.

Silk; turned twill with blocks exchanged periodically

Silk base cloth; merino supplementary warp on reverse, tied down only at merino weft stripes

Silk base cloth; same as previous image

Silk warp (hand-dyed with vegatable dyes) and weft; turned satin on networked curve

Silk warp and weft; turned satin on networked curves

Detail of narrower scarf, fanned out to show the zigzag curve of the stripes.

Overtwisted fine wool yarn in both warp and weft.

Grey merino and white wool/tencel stripes in the warp; weft is wool/tencel, with a few threads of wool/lycra every 4 inches.

Both scarves are from the same warp; when the scarf on left failed to shrink, I switched strategies to make the scarf on the right crinkle up.

Last Updated on August 08, 2011