An adventurous thing to do with your rigid-heddle loom is to add an additional heddle. For a modest investment, you can open up new vistas in weaving, making it possible to weave cloth set more finely than 12 ends per inch and new weave structures, like the Theo Moorman technique. And, as we’ll see in Three-Heddle Adventures, adding a third heddle gives you even greater possibilities.
A rigid-heddle loom is the equivalent of a two-shaft loom, with an important difference: one of the “shafts” is passive. The holes do all the work: raising “shaft 1” by going up when you raise the heddle and raising “shaft 2” when you lower the heddle, getting out of the way so the slot threads are on top.
A common misunderstanding about rigid-heddle looms is that each heddle adds the effect of two more shafts, meaning that two heddles are the equivalent of a four-shaft loom. This is wrong. When you add another heddle to the rigid-heddle loom, you get another set of active threads that can move independently, but the slot threads in the second heddle act exactly as the slot threads on the first heddle. They don’t move. So adding additional heddles after the first is like adding one more shaft to your loom, not two. In other words, a rigid-heddle loom with two heddles is the equivalent of a three-shaft loom, a rigid-heddle loom with three heddles is the equivalent of a four-shaft loom, and a rigid-heddle loom with seven heddles (if you could manage it) would be the equivalent of an eight-shaft loom.
If you only have two heddles, you can create four-shaft patterns by using pickup sticks to create additional sheds. In most cases, however, I find it easier to use a third heddle instead of juggling both pickup sticks and heddles. This also has the advantage that a third heddle won’t fall out of your warp if you pick up your loom to move it to another room. We’ll see how to use three heddles in Three-Heddle Adventures, but first let’s find out what we can do with two heddles.
All of these fabrics feature fine threads, such as (left to right) Tencel, bamboo, and silk, which need to be woven at setts finer than 12 ends per inch. Using two heddles together (two 12-dent heddles create 24 epi) makes it possible to weave fine fabrics like these on a rigid-heddle loom.
One of my favorite uses of a second heddle on a rigid-heddle loom is to weave fine cloth. Most people associate rigid-heddle loom cloth with thick cloth because the finest heddle you can buy is 16 ends per inch. If the plastic were milled any finer than this, the uprights would be too thin and likely to crack.
With two heddles, you can double the sett and weave 24 ends per inch (two 12-dent heddles), 20 ends per inch (two 10-dent heddles), and 16 ends per inch (two 8-dent heddles.) This adds a whole new range to the weight of cloth you can weave.
A 24 ends-per-inch fabric woven with 10/2 Tencel, for example, makes lovely garment fabric. Remember to adjust the thickness of your threads when you add a second heddle: trying to weave 3/2 cotton at 24 epi would create a super-dense fabric with sticky sheds that would be unpleasant to weave. (If you need a reminder about how to pick the proper sett, see the Sett Chart.)
Weaving fine cloth with two heddles is easy. You simply raise and lower the two heddles together to make the shed. It’s exactly the same as weaving plain weave with one heddle. To beat, you can either use just the front heddle, or bring both heddles forward together. On my looms, I rubber-band the two heddles together and treat them as one, which makes the weaving motion smooth and fast.
Threading two heddles to weave plain weave is a technique well worth learning. There are many ways to get the threads into position. Some folks thread one heddle at a time; others thread both together and shift threads around later. As long as the end result matches the diagram here, it will weave correctly.
The main thing to keep in mind as you thread two heddles for plain weave is that any time you have three threads together in a slot, they need to get split up on the next heddle into left slot, hole, right slot in order to maintain the plain-weave structure. If you look at the diagram for step 6, you’ll see this occurring going forward for the threads together in a slot on the back heddle, and going backward for the threads together in a slot on the front heddle.
Threading the back heddle of a two-heddle project.
These directions assume that you’re at the front of the loom, facing the back. Left-handed persons may choose to substitute left for right in these instructions to make them more lefty-friendly.
(a) Pull one of the slot threads (blue) to the slot on the right. This is the same slot the hole thread went into.
(b) Pull one of the slot threads (green) into the hole on the right.
(c) Pull the final slot thread (yellow) into the slot on the left.
One of the tricky things about working with multiple heddles is keeping them stable on your loom while you’re threading them. Some looms, like the Schacht Flip, come with multiple threading slots built in. The Flip can accommodate up to three heddles without any modifications. Other looms, such as the Ashford Knitter’s Loom, have add-on kits that modify it for double-heddle use. If your loom does not have a double-heddle kit, or you prefer not to buy one, use a clamp, such as the Irwin Quick Grip clamp, to attach the second heddle to the loom or the table to hold it steady while threading.
Crossed threads are something to watch out for. They can occur when you’re threading the second heddle and inadvertently reach under or over one warp to grab another. Or, you can cross a thread by threading into the wrong slot or hole in the front heddle. This creates a twist between the two heddles that will impede weaving. Before you begin weaving any multiple-heddle project, test your threading by putting the heddles through all the various shed combinations that your project requires. While you do so, look between the heddles to spot any crossed threads.
Fixing a crossed thread is sometimes as easy as sliding the crossed thread out of the heddle, and threading it through the correct path. Sometimes, however, one crossed thread gives rise to another, and you end up rethreading half your warp threads, or perhaps the entire warp. In this scenario, it’s a good idea to take a break, stretch a bit, and enjoy a cup of tea before going back and rethreading. In my experience, when you feel like kicking your loom, stepping away is good for both the loom and the weaver.
Crossed thread (blue) caused by twisting one thread around another during threading
This color gamp is a traditional one, made with pure hues. Finding the right mix of pure hues can be a challenging but instructive time at a yarn store. Or, if you are a skilled dyer, you can generate your own palette of yarns. In this gamp, I used the yarns in the Tubular Spectrum series sold by Lunatic Fringe. (These yarns are sold in sets of assorted colors of different-weight yarns.) Whatever yarns you use, take careful notes of the colors and the order they were woven in so you can repeat the combinations you like best in later projects.
| project stage | width |
length |
| Off the loom |
15" |
15.4" |
| After wet-finishing (excluding fringe) |
15" |
14.7" |
| Shrinkage |
0% |
5% |
Wind a warp 1 yard long of 360 ends, 18 threads of each color. Follow the color order in the chart on this page, placing two loops in each slot on the rear heddle. Then, follow the warping instructions for weaving fine cloth on two heddles.
Wash as you would any cotton fabric. Press. Use a rotary cutter or scissors to trim the fringe to 3⁄4". (See photo.)
Double-tap the image to open to fill the screen. Use the two-finger pinch-out method to zoom in. (These features are available on most e-readers.)
There is no right or wrong in a color gamp, and as you’ll find, it’s a tool you can use over and over to help design the color interactions when planning projects. Here are some suggestions for how to make the most of it:
Move the cloth; do you see iridescence anywhere? This is that marvelous quality of some fabrics to shift colors when you look at them from different angles.
Isolate the color regions when you look at them, because you perceive color differently depending on what it’s next to. A piece of mat board in black or photo gray with a hole cut in it (or two L shapes that you can combine to make a variable-size opening) is a useful tool.
Which squares appeal to you? Which squares repulse you? Take a look at the relative positions of the warp and weft on the color wheel. Do you like low-contrast combinations of colors close together on the color wheel, or do you prefer the vibrancy of colors on opposite sides of the color wheel? There is no right or wrong here, just what you like and what you don’t like.
Look for stripes or plaid palettes. You might want to take a few moments here to find a set of colors on your gamp that works together for designing stripes and plaids.
Note that nowhere in the previous section did I call a gamp a “sample.” It’s a tool for planning projects and improving the resulting textiles. Oh, wait — that’s what a sample is! The way to think about samples is not as an onerous task imposed on you from the outside, but as an investigation you undertake to improve your understanding of the weaving craft in general, and this project or aspect in particular.
I write this as a woman who currently has a sweater on knitting needles with a gauge of 33⁄4 stitches to the inch instead of 4 because she didn’t feel like swatching. I’m trying to decide whether to rip back or eat more chocolate. My willingness to sample in weaving (it’s fast, and you can do it on the same warp) and my reluctance to knit a gauge swatch is why I’m a better weaver than knitter.
Kitchen towels are useful and inexpensive items to weave, and they make great hostess gifts. Best of all, they wear out and get stained on a regular basis, giving you an excuse to weave more. This project creates four towels approximately 16" by 24" each. Cottolin is my favorite yarn for dish towels, as it has the absorbency of linen but is as easy to weave as cotton. Traditional Scandinavian weavers often use cottolin for warp and linen for weft.
| project stage | width |
length |
| Off the loom |
17" |
251⁄2" |
| After wet-finishing |
161⁄2" |
241⁄4" |
| Shrinkage |
3% |
5% |
Wind a warp 4 yards long of 432 threads, following the color order in the chart below, placing two loops in each slot on the rear heddle. Then follow the threading instructions for weaving fine cloth on two heddles.
Note: Weave the first wine block and the last peacock block for 23⁄4".
Cut the cloth from the loom and zigzag-stitch or serge the raw ends of the fabric to secure it.
Wash and dry the fabric in a washing machine as you would any dish towels.
Cut the towels apart at the wintergreen separator threads and turn the ends in a double-fold hem that is 1⁄2" wide (see How to Make a Double-Fold Hem).
There are myriad forms and uses for towels: fancy linen tea towels, hard-scrubbing dishcloths, and super-absorbent bath towels. Terry-cloth pile bath towels are a modern invention. The towels of yesteryear were thirsty linen yarns woven into plain weave. With a bit of piecing together at the selvedges, you could weave up a satisfying set of vintage towels for your bath. Although weaving a large towel or bath sheet would be quite the undertaking on a rigid-heddle loom, there are many smaller, yet satisfying projects you can weave, such as the Looped-Pile Washcloth and Cottolin Kitchen Towels given here.
| Dishcloth |
12" × 12" |
| Kitchen towel |
16" × 25" |
| Washcloth |
13" × 13" |
| Fingertip towel |
11" × 18" |
| Hand towel |
16" × 30" |
| Bath towel |
27" × 52" |
| Bath sheet |
35" × 60" |
The Moorman inlay technique was developed by Theo Moorman, a twentieth-century British artist and weaver. It’s a technique in which you weave a ground cloth, and at the same time have a thinner set of supplemental warps that tie down pattern yarns that float on top of the ground cloth. It’s similar to the inlay technique used for the Supplemental Weft Inlay. Because the pattern weft does not contribute to the stability of the cloth, you’re free to move the pattern yarns across the face of the cloth in creative ways. It’s like painting with yarn. Theo Moorman technique is most efficient for weaving designs with a plain background and a few focal elements that dance across the cloth. Here are the basic elements of the technique:
Pattern weft moving diagonally across the ground cloth in a fabric woven in Theo Moorman technique
For steps 1–3 below, line up the heddles and pull the threads through the corresponding slots on both the front and back heddles. The black threads are the tie-down threads; the blue threads are the ground cloth.
Continue in this pattern until the whole width is threaded.
When you are done threading, check to ensure that you have the following:
For this scarf, the ground cloth is woven by raising and lowering the two heddles together. You have two options for inserting the pattern weft: one after the down ground-cloth shed, and another after the up ground-cloth shed. You can add pattern weft on one of these sheds for a sparse inlay, or add pattern weft in both sheds for a dense inlay, or add pattern weft in neither shed to weave the background cloth without any inlay.
What’s fun about this technique is that the tie-down threads provide the structure for the pattern weft, giving you the freedom to draw or scribble with the pattern yarn. It has tremendous design possibilities.
| project stage | width |
length |
| Off the loom |
73⁄4" |
72" |
| After wet-finishing |
71⁄4" |
66" |
| Shrinkage |
6% |
8% |
Wind a warp 21⁄2 yards long with 82 ground threads and 42 tie-down threads. Thread the loom as described in How to Thread for Theo Moorman Technique. Insert a pickup stick to weave the bottom half of the tie-down warp as follows: Put both heddles in the down position and use the stick to pick up only the tie-down slot threads. The pickup stick should be behind the heddles when you do this.
row |
heddles |
yarn |
|
1 |
Lower both heddles |
Ground weft |
|
2 |
Raise the rear heddle |
Pattern weft |
|
3 |
Raise both heddles |
Ground weft |
|
4 |
Turn stick (heddles in neutral) |
Pattern weft |
Note: If you are using a pattern weft that is much thicker than the ground fabric, you may find that you need to weave a couple of extra picks of plain weave in the ground fabric. To do so, weave the pattern above, omitting the inlay rows (2 and 4) every other time through the pattern.
Twist a fringe to secure the ends.
Handwash the scarf in warm water using a wool-safe soap or shampoo. Agitate slightly, but not so much that the fabric felts. Gently squeeze dry. Remove excess water by rolling the scarf in a towel and stepping on it with clean, bare feet. Hang to dry.