It’s Cloth . . . Now What?

There are few things as rewarding as creating your own clothes and accessories, and there is nothing so personal and homey as a house well dressed in handwoven goods. Go to the house of any long-time weaver and you’ll likely find handwoven towels, rugs, curtains, lamp shades, pillows, blankets, and more. Whether your interest is self-sufficiency, artistic expression, or simply the magic of transforming chaotic threads into a cohesive whole, a handwoven garment or pillow is a balm to the soul.

I’m going to confess here that I’m more of a weaver than a seamstress, so my handwoven projects tend toward the simple and easy to sew. I’m just giving you an overview of some of the techniques and equipment you’ll need if you get excited about sewing handwoven fabric.

Weaving Fabric to Wear

Handwoven cloth has a bad rap as being difficult to sew with. You may even hear that you “can’t sew with handwoven cloth.” This is obviously wrong, otherwise there would have been a lot of cold Vikings back in the day. What is true is that handwoven cloth is different from commercial cloth, with properties that can be advantages or disadvantages when sewing. Here are some of the cons you’ll hear about:

• Handwoven fabric drapes a bit like bias, but everywhere.
• It can be thick and hard to fit under a sewing-machine foot and also hard to keep the top and bottom layer moving together.
• It has a greater tendency to unravel than most commercial cloth.

There are reasons for these differences, and I’ll tell you how to address them, but first let me tell you all the ways in which handwoven fabric is perfect for garments.

• A nice hand. Because handwoven fabric generally has a looser sett and is beaten more gently, it has more stretch and give than commercially woven cloth. In my experience, handwoven cloth on the grain tends to have as much stretch as commercial cloth on the bias, and handwoven cloth on the bias has as much stretch as commercial knit fabric.
• A unique cloth. Weaving your own cloth gives you access to unique fabrics you can’t find in stores. When you design your cloth, literally thread by thread, it gives you that much more control over your finished product. You can add meaningful motifs to the fabric as you weave it, match colors, add textured floats, highlight amazing yarns, or add beads. Your loom is your own custom fabric store, able to be filled with amazing cloth that can’t be found anywhere else in the world.
• Ability to make more. If you run out of cloth for a pattern, or decide you want pants to match the jacket, you can always weave more. With commercial fabrics, once it’s sold out at the store, it’s often gone for good.
• Selvedges don’t unravel. If you are clever about how you place the seams in your garments, selvedges can save you time, be less bulky, and make a lovely finish on the inside of your garment. You do have to serge or zigzag along cut edges, however, to ensure that they don’t unravel.

Tools for Sewing Handwovens

Only three things are required for sewing with handwoven cloth: scissors, needle, and thread. There are, however, other tools that will make the experience faster and/or more efficient, including, of course, a sewing machine. Here are just a few items you might want to have when you begin sewing with your handwoven yardage.

• Presser foot features. If you find yourself shopping for a new sewing machine, two features will make it easier to sew handwoven fabric. The first is a tip I learned from weaving instructor Robyn Spady. A walking presser foot moves the top layer of cloth along at the same rate as the feed dogs of the sewing machine move the bottom layer. This attachment is available on most modern sewing machines. Another thing to look for is how high the presser foot lifts. Because handwoven fabric is typically thicker than commercial fabric, the higher the pressure foot lifts, the better.
• A serger. This machine cuts and finishes edges in one pass. It’s wonderful for securing the raw edges of fabric before you wash it, and it can be used for garment construction as well. It’s not essential for sewing with handwoven fabric, but it does make the process easier.
• A good iron and ironing board. One of the secrets to beautifully finished garments is pressing. A quality iron makes this easier and more fun.
• Other sewing tool essentials include needles and pins, a thimble that fits you, measuring tape, scissors, and a seam ripper.
• Useful materials that you may need, depending on what you’re making, include at least 1 yard of prewashed commercial fabric in a coordinating color (for creating a lining and/or bias tape); cotton quilting fabric works well. In addition, purchase buttons, zippers, snaps, elastic and/or other closures that make you happy. It’s also helpful to have extra weft and warp yarn from your handwoven fabric.

Working with Narrow-Width Fabric

It’s a common misconception that you need a wide loom in order to weave cloth for clothing. It’s easy to understand why you might think so: fabric stores carry fabric in 36" and 45" widths, and that’s what clothing patterns list when indicating the needed yardage. However, weaving narrow yardage is common in cultures that hand-weave cloth for clothing. Think of the beautiful kente cloth from Ghana and the Ivory Coast, which is woven 4" to 6" wide, then pieced together to make wide sheets that are worn togalike, draped around the body. The weavers arrange the patterned strips to create dazzling quiltlike designs, effectively enabling them to do the work of a multishaft dobby loom (complicated block weaves on a simple loom). Another example is traditional Japanese kimono fabric, which is woven at widths 13" to 15" wide. If you measure less than 60" around the widest point of your body, you could make yourself a kimono with 15" wide yardage, with a seam up the back and two separate panels for the left and right front. If your measurement is larger than 60", simply add additional panels as needed. An excellent reference book for this approach is John Marshall’s Make Your Own Japanese Clothes (Kodansha U.S.A., 2013).

If loom-shaped garments aren’t your thing (and because of my curves, they’re not mine), you can often adapt a commercial pattern to work with narrow yardage. Many sewing pattern pieces can easily fit on a fabric that’s 15" to 20" wide, so place your pieces on the cloth and see if you get lucky. If not, here are some other techniques you can try:

• Fudge the grain line. Although the grain line affects how a fabric stretches and getting this wrong can cause a garment to hang oddly, you can sometimes get away with tilting the pattern piece a bit to get it on without overly affecting the finished garment.
• Add seams to the pattern. This is as simple as cutting the pattern in half at a strategic place, such as the center back or along the inside line of a sleeve, then adding seam allowances to both sides of the cut.
• Seam the cloth before cutting. Use an invisible seam like mattress stitch to sew together fabric on the selvedges to create wider fabric before you cut out the pattern pieces. You could also choose to use a normal seam or a mock flat-fell seam, pressed flat before laying out the patterns pieces on it.
  

  Detail of Kente cloth strips sewn together

  

  Kente strips sewn together to make a large cloth

Assembling the Pieces

You can make almost invisible seams, or seams that are an obvious design element. You can piece together strips or use quilting techniques to bring together small irregular shapes. Here is one seaming technique I find useful for handwoven cloth. For more options, check online or in a sewing reference book.

How to Sew an Invisible Seam with Mattress Stitch

Weaving artist Bonnie Tarses taught me mattress stitch, a method of seaming that is nearly invisible. Another great tip from Bonnie is to use thread colors at the selvedges that don’t match. If you join two different colors together, your eye won’t expect regularity and will be more forgiving of the changes introduced by the join.

mattress stitch

Instructions

1. 1. Using a tapestry needle, thread a 1-yard length of warp. If this is not long enough to complete the seam, you can needleweave the end of the first length into the fabric. Start a second length of warp by needleweaving it into the cloth to secure it, and then continue the seam.
2. 2. Lay the two pieces of fabric that you are joining side by side, right side up, with the selvedges touching. Check whether the number of picks match exactly; if not, you’ll have to fudge it a bit to make things come out even. If the seam is long, you may want to fasten safety pins or use fabric clips every 3" or so to keep the edges aligned properly.
3. 3. Starting at the bottom of the fabric, come up from the back of the fabric into the first loop created at the selvedge where the weft came out and then turned to go back into the fabric.
4. 4. Catch the corresponding loop on the other selvedge, coming up from the back of the fabric as you did in step 3. Snug up the slack in the yarn until the two fabrics exactly abut each other.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until the whole selvedge is sewn together. If one side has more picks than the other, you can occasionally skip over a weft turn on the side that has more picks to make up the difference. Be sure to spread the skipped turns out across the seam so they don’t pile up in one area and become noticeable.

Stick Shuttle Template

Stick Shuttle Template (see Stick: The Simplest Shuttle)

Go to http://whol.st/Patterns-Plan to download and print this pattern. Trace it onto heavy cardboard, adjusting the length as desired.

Felted Pot Holders Cutting Plan

Felted Pot Holders Cutting Plan (see the instructions)

Handle Tab Pattern for Rewoven Fabric Bag

Handle Tab Pattern for Rewoven Fabric Bag (see the instructions)

Go to http://whol.st/Patterns-Plan to download and print this pattern.

Tapestry Cover Cartoon

Tapestry Cover Cartoon (see project, Tapestry Cover for a Digital E-Reader)

Go to http://whol.st/Tapestry-Cover to download and print this cartoon.

Transparency cartoon

Transparency cartoon (see project, At Home)

Go to http://whol.st/Transparency-Cartoon to download and print this cartoon.

Weave within Your Body’s Limits

My grandmother used to encourage me to stand up tall, keeping my stomach muscles engaged for good posture. When I was nine, I thought she was plumb crazy. Turns out she was preparing me for weaving. When you weave, you should sit tall with your stomach muscles slightly engaged. Hunching is easy to fall into, especially when you reach forward to grab the heddle. But the heddle-grabbing motion should come from your hips. You lean forward to grab the heddle, and lean back to beat the weft into place. If you hunch, you build up tension in your shoulders and arms and make it harder to breathe, all of which will shorten the amount of time you can weave comfortably.

The other thing is to sit properly with your loom. If you don’t have a stand, you should lock the loom into place by placing the feet or notch on the back of the loom against a table and then do something I call “bellying up to the bar”: you brace the front of the rigid-heddle loom against your stomach. While you’re weaving, the loom should be unable to shift around. Most rigid-heddle looms have a notch or feet to brace against a table, but some looms, like the Glimakra, do not have this feature and need to be clamped to a table or used with a stand instead.

If you are using a stand with your loom, make sure that you have a chair that is the proper height for the stand. You should be able to sit at the loom with your arms and legs at approximately 90-degree angles. Weaving should feel comfortable, and you should not have to strain to move the heddle.

Your most important weaving tool is your body, so take care of it. When you’re weaving, especially when things are going well, it is easy to become focused and stay at the loom until the entire warp is done. If you do this, especially if you’re not used to weaving for long periods of time, you can end up with a stiff back, sore shoulders, a pulled neck, or all of the above. Take breaks; get up from the loom and do stretches, like those shown here. The weaving will be all the better for it, and your body will thank you, too.

Clasping your fingers, raise your arms over your head. Reclasp your fingers with opposite fingers on top and repeat.

With your arms raised, hold your left elbow with your right hand, at the same time stretching your left hand down your back. Repeat on the other side.

Clasping your fingers with your arms behind your back, lift your chest and stretch. Reclasp your fingers with opposite fingers on top and repeat the stretch.

In addition to stopping to take breaks, check your ergonomics at the loom. Not every loom fits every body. I’ve known weavers with short arms who found the Flip loom too deep for them to weave on comfortably, and weavers with long arms who had issues with the Ashford Knitter’s Loom. Test-drive a loom with a warp or two, if you can, before you purchase it. Taking a class where you rent or borrow a loom is a great way to gain experience and see if the loom suits your body.

Just as the depth of a loom can be a problem, so can the width of the warp. As the warp gets wider, the amount of force your arms have to produce to raise and lower the heddle increases. There are rigid-heddle looms on the market that go as wide as 36". On a floor loom, a 36" wide warp isn’t a problem, because you’re opening the shed with your feet. On a rigid-heddle loom, all the force to open that shed comes from your shoulders and arms. This will either make you strong or make you hurt. In addition to the force required to open the shed, there’s a physical price to pay for throwing a shuttle that wide: your arms have to continuously reach out to the side. I’m five foot six inches, and the widest I like to weave when I’m hand-throwing a shuttle is about 24".