Huck Lace Effect

In my blog post, “Weaving Huck Lace!” I wrote about my experience with weaving patterns designed with clear cut blocks of plain weave and Huck Lace.  I later wrote another post, “Lace & Spot Weave Variations” about patterns designed with warp floats and weft floats on a plain weave background.  So here I am again playing around with lace weaves, designing profile drafts and using block substitution, trying to create something interesting.  I came up with a few drafts that I liked and wove a scarf and a shawl, here they are followed with some drafts and notes:

Huck Lace Effect Scarf

Huck Lace Effect Scarf (8 shafts), flecked cotton/acrylic, 2023

Huck Lace Effect Scarf (8 shafts), flecked cotton/acrylic, 2023 (close-up)

Huck Lace Effect Scarf (8 shafts), flecked cotton/acrylic, 2023 (very close-up)

I used a 20/2 flecked cotton/acrylic yarn to weave this scarf at 30 e.p.i. and about the same p.p.i. on 8 shafts. The pattern looked really nice after wet finishing (hand washing and steam ironing).

I started with a profile draft and used block substitution using Fiberworks weaving software to generate the thread-by-thread draft. It’s so easy to do this: click on Tools, click on Block Substitution in the drop-down menu, click on Lace Weaves, and click on one of the choices – I chose “Huck Lace effect.” On this first try the result was nice but not very interesting:

Profile Draft #1

Huck Lace Effect Draft generated from Profile Draft #1

Then I made a little change to the profile draft that looked hopeful, and I liked the resulting thread-by-thread draft so I used this draft for the Scarf:

Profile Draft #2

Huck Lace Effect Draft for Scarf generated from Profile Draft #2 (click image to enlarge)

Huck Lace Effect Shawl

Huck Lace Effect Shawl (10 shafts), flecked cotton/acrylic, 2023

Huck Lace Effect Shawl (10 shafts), flecked cotton/acrylic, 2023 (close-up)

Huck Lace Effect Shawl (10 shafts), flecked cotton/acrylic, 2023 (very close-up)

Using the same process as for the Scarf, I designed a different pattern for the Shawl. It was more challenging and so much fun! I used the same yarn as for the Scarf except in a golden color. The sett and wet finishing are also the same as for the Scarf. If you would like to learn more about designing and weaving Huck Lace, I recommend the book from the Best of Weaver’s series, Best of Weaver’s – Huck Lace, edited by Madelyn van der Hoogt.

While hiking with my husband in the Fall at a nature preserve, the beauty of the colors and textures inspired me to weave this scarf and shawl:

Inspiration

Happy New Year, see you next time!

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Weaving Huck Lace!

I know how to do Filet Crochet, it’s very open, lacy, looks beautiful using fine yarns, and patterns can be easily designed on graph paper.  So, I thought why not try to weave something like this.  From the many types of lace weaves, I chose Huck Lace.  I spent hours designing 7-block profile drafts for Huck and plain weave blocks that I could weave on my 16-shaft treadle loom.

Although a main subject on a background is nice, I was really trying to design a profile draft with a balance between the Huck and the plain weave areas so that the negative and positive spaces would be equally important.  This way the patterns formed by the Huck areas as well as the plain weave areas would be interesting.

I came up with a profile draft I thought would work, and what started out to be a lacy shawl ended up as a curtain because I love the way it looks when light passes through it.  Following are images, drafts and other details about it.

Huck Lace Curtain (pearl cotton) 2010

Huck Lace Curtain (pearl cotton) 2010 (detail 1)

Huck Lace Curtain (pearl cotton) 2010 (detail 2)

Profile Draft and Partial Weaving Draft:

After designing the profile draft, I used the “block substitution” feature in my weaving program to generate a complete thread-by-thread weaving draft.  But you don’t really need a full thread-by-thread draft; just follow the block order in the profile draft.  For example, if you look at the Profile Draft and Partial Weaving Draft below, reading right to left and top to bottom, the first block is threaded and treadled as:  1-6-1-6-1, 2-5-2-5-2, 1-6-1-6-1; the next block as:  2-7-2-7-2, 1-8-1-8-1, 2-7-2-7-2; and so on.

PROFILE DRAFT for Huck Lace Curtain

Partial Weaving Draft for Huck Lace Curtain

Huck Lace Unit:

I used a 5-thread Huck in this project where warp floats alternate with weft floats.  The image and draft below show how one full unit of this type of Huck can be threaded and treadled repeatedly on 4 shafts as 2-3-2-3-2, 1-4-1-4-1.  For my project I used 1-1/2 units per block.

Huck Lace Sample and Draft

For more on Huck Lace using 4 shafts there are two superb articles on Weavezine:  Laura Fry’s “Woven Lace: Huck on a Twill Threading” and Michele Belson’s “Color Gamps” that has a draft for “Huck Lace Blocks in Plain Weave Ground.”

And my favorite book on the subject is:  Huck Lace (The Best of Weaver’s), edited by Madelyn van der Hoogt.

Weaving Notes:

I wove a few samples at first trying out different setts and yarns.  The winner was 20/2 pearl cotton sett at 30 e.p.i., sleyed 2 per dent in a 15-dent reed.  This sett is loose compared to 36 e.p.i. that I often use for plain weave with this type of yarn, but looser works well in this case.

With an added inch or so of plain weave at the selvedges, the width on the loom was about 26″ with a finished width of 24″ after hand washing and steam ironing while still lightly damp.  I wove enough yardage to make curtains for a small window.

There was one other sample I really liked where I used a very fine 64/2 merino silk yarn.  I’m thinking of doing a Huck Lace project with this.  Stay tuned.

Update (February 2011):  I wove two Huck Lace Shawls using the 64/2 merino silk yarn with a sett of 45 e.p.i., they feel really luxurious.  Here’s a picture:

Huck Lace Shawl, silk & merino wool, 17″x68″, 2011

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