Interleaved Echo Weave…

…or non-parallel interleaved twill designs would be a more accurate way of describing what I’m working on now, as I later learned from Bonnie Inouye.  Bonnie gave a seminar called “Interleave” at the Complex Weavers Seminars 2014 which I was not able to attend, but in her usual generous manner she shared with me the handout for her presentation that answered some of my questions on this topic.

I have done some work already using parallel threadings to weave echo designs, and now I’m excited to share some of my experience with non-parallel threadings.  The first time I read about it was in Sandra Rude’s article in the Complex Weavers Journal 2006, “Adventures in Not-So-Parallel Threading, Part II.”  At that time I didn’t understand any of it, but after giving it a few tries and spending many hours using the interleave tool in Fiberworks PCW, I think I get it now.  Also, I bought Marian Stubenitsky‘s beautiful new book, Weaving with Echo and Iris, full of amazing color photographs that are a feast to the eyes.  The book has a lot of great technical information as well with chapters on various related weaves.  It’s a treasure!

I like to experiment and weave samples especially when I’m learning something new.  One of my first interleaved designs started out with two easy threadings that I interleaved to design a third one.  In Fiberworks you can copy one threading, go to the second threading and under “edit” choose “interleave paste.”  A dialogue box appears with several options and a slider that shows you how the two threadings are being interleaved as you move it to the right or to the left.

Two threadings interleaved to design a third one

My complete 8-shaft draft includes the interleaved threading as shown above, a twill tie-up, an advancing point treadling, two colors alternating in the threading and one solid color in the treadling.  Here it is showing one repeat of the threading and one of the treadling:

Draft for Interleaved Twill Woven Sample showing one repeat of threading and treadling

Below are photos of the sample I wove using the draft shown above.  I used 20/2 cotton with two strands together for warp and weft with a sett of 28 epi and about the same ppi.  The warp ends alternate purple and burned orange and the weft is bluish turquoise.  I learned from sampling and from reading articles about these types of designs that the sett may be closer or may be more open and warp and weft may be of different sizes, depending on what you want to achieve.  For example, Sandra Rude in her earlier article in the Complex Weavers Journal 2005,  “Adventures in Parallel Threading, Part I,” writes that a more open sett looks more like an ordinary twill but you get more color blending because more of the weft shows.  More color blending is what I was aiming for in this sample:

Interleaved Twill Woven Sample

Interleaved Twill Woven Sample (close-up)

The more I experiment with interleaved designs the more I like it.  Below is an example of a 16-shaft, non-parallel interleaved networked twill design that shows just part of a larger draft.  For short, I prefer calling it “interleaved echo weave” because back in 1996 Alice Schlein already named these types of designs with parallel threadings “echo weave.”

Interleaved echo weave partial draft – non-parallel interleaved networked twill threading and networked twill treadling

Finally, here are photos of 16-shaft interleaved echo weave scarves that I designed and wove with different patterns.  I used 20/2 Tencel that I dyed with fiber reactive dyes.  I was invited by our friend, Jill Beech, a ceramic artist whose beautiful work is interesting and inspiring, to show and sell some of my work at her open studio during the end of the year holiday season.  That’s where these scarves will be going.

Interleaved Echo Weave Scarf woven on 16 shafts, hand-dyed Tencel, 2014

Interleaved Echo Weave Scarf, hand-dyed Tencel, woven on 16 shafts, 2014

Hope you enjoyed reading about my adventures in the non-parallel weaving universe.  See you next time!

Eva

UPDATE January, 2016:  Below are images of a new interleaved echo weave shawl I designed and wove:

Interleaved Echo Weave Shawl woven on 16 shafts, pearl cotton warp, cashmere/silk/merino weft, 2016

Interleaved Echo Weave Shawl woven on 16 shafts, pearl cotton warp, cashmere/silk/merino weft, 2016 (close-up)

UPDATE 2019:  Marian Stubenitsky, author of Weaving with Echo and Iris, is now sharing some of her beautiful drafts on handweaving.net at this link.

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