Double cloth is where two cloths are woven simultaneously, one on top of the other. They may be two completely separate cloths or joined in several different ways:
Along one selvedge to open up to double width
Along both selvedges to create a warp-wise tube
At horizontal points to create weft-wise tubes
at various points long the warp and weft to create pockets
One weft yarn may be used for both cloths or a different yarn for each cloth. The cloths wil be joined at the selvedges if just one weft yarn is used.
Set up
A double cloth structure can be set up multiple ways. For me, the simplest way is to have one warp, at double sett, with a straight draft (as shown in the below draft). Then the ends on the odd shafts would be for one of the cloths (e.g. top) and the end on the even shafts would be for the other cloth (e.g. bottom). This only really works well if you want the same yarn type for each warp, and the same weft for each cloth. The warp could be made up with two different yarns but you may end us with one ‘baggy’ cloth due to different yarn properties, particularly the elasticity. The benefit it that a double cloth can be woven on a single back beam loom.
The main thing to remember is that the warp needs to be double sett to allow each cloth to be woven at the desired sett. The ends on each cloth need to be on separate shafts from each other, for example odds/evens, 1-4/5-8. The ends also need to be threaded alternately – one end from the top cloth next to one end from the bottom cloth etc.
Below is how I choose to draw out a double cloth draft. I have use black/white circles to visualise which warp/weft belongs to which cloth. You’ll see that I have also used ‘o’ and ‘x’. The ‘x’ represents the usual lifting of the shafts to create the structure. The addition of the ‘o’ represents the top cloth ends which will be lifted up out of the way while the bottom cloth is woven.
Most commonly, double cloths are woven using two back beams so that each cloth’s tension can be controlled separately.
Below is an example of a double cloth where one cloth/set of warp ends it threaded on shafts 1-4 and the other set on shafts 5-8. The ends from each cloth need to be threaded alternately to create evenly spaced cloths. The lifting plan shows how you can swap the cloths over, going from the black cloth on top to the white cloth on top. This would be a way of creating weft-wise tubes.
The draft could be further developed by placing blocks in to create multiple pockets. E.g. blocks of shafts 1/2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8. This allows you to swap over the top and bottom cloths in both the warp and weft direction.
Weaving
The basic principle of weaving a double cloth if that you would weave one pick of the top cloth. Then lift all of the top cloth ends up and weave one pick of the bottom cloth. And repeat. The above has only shown plain weave structures. Therefore, four picks is one repeat. Depending on the number of shafts available other structures can be woven in each cloth, for example, you may want a 2/2 twill on the top cloth.
You may need to reconsider the method above if you have very different yarns for each warp. They may require different setts and therefore alternating the ends threaded may not work.
If different weft yarns are used in each cloth one cloth may build up more quickly than the other. This could be compensated for by weaving more picks in one cloth before weaving the next cloth. For example, weaving two top cloth picks for every one bottom cloth pick.
Once you get the hang of weaving two cloths simultaneously you’ll be able to think about other things you can do with this structure: Pleats are made by weaving a double cloth where the top cloth is woven more quickly causing an excesss of fabric. This excess is secured to the bottom cloth with a plain weave at intervals. More than two cloths can be woven simultaneously. I have woven up to four. As long as you have at least two shafts for each cloth you can weave as many as you like.
Corduroy has had a bit of a revival in recent years and it is a great fabric to play around with weaving. It’s a fairly simple structure which only requires four shafts.
Corduroy is a ribbed fabric with a velvet like-feel to it. It has warp-wise ridges which are cut to create a pile. Due to their structure corduroys tend to be a heavier fabric and used for clothes such as coats, trousers, suits as well as for interiors.
When manufactured the ridges (ribs) tend to be quite narrow. The ribs are called ‘wales’. For standard clothing the number of wales per inch is around 10-12 but can vary from 6 (jumbo cord) to 18 (needle or pin cord).
The ribs are made up of stripes of weft floats with a narrow plain weave between them which is there to secure the floats down. The ground cloth behind is what holds everything together. These floats are cut down the center to create the characteristic pile.
Below is the woven structure I used to weave my corduroy. I did make mine super chunky as you can see from the fabric pictures above. This was to allow me to easily see what was going on.
The corduroy below only uses four shafts. Two are for the plain weave background and the other two secure the floats down with plain weave. The picks alternate between one pick of weaving the plain weave background and two which weave the floats.
The corduroy in the image above was woven using 2/20nm spun silk and tussah silk. It was intested to see what effect the tussah silk had in comparison to the spun silk in terms of texture. The spun silk is so soft and luxurious while the tussah is more spikey. It would be fun to experiment how different yarns effect the texture of the pile.
When weaving I beat down quite firmly to ensure that the ground cloth was strong and the plain weave would hold the floats in place when cut. It is only the plain weave on shafts 1 and 2 that stop the floats from coming out.
To cut the floats I found it best to cut them while the fabric was still on the loom and under tension. I cut them as I went along, once I had woven about 5cm or so. The scissors need to be very sharp, small and pointy. The first couple of pairs of scissors I used were not small and sharp enough. Every time I cut the floats the scissors just pulled the weft floats out of the structure. It may take a few tries to find the right ones and of course as the width of the ribs gets smaller the scissors need to get smaller too.
A twill can also be used for the ground cloth. This will enable the cloth to be beaten down more and increase the density of the floats making a more luxurious fabric. Weaving the floats so that they are not all exactly the same width will also give a more rounded shape to the ribs.
A lot of fun fabrics could be created by varying the yarn type, width of rib and where the floats are cut (do they all need to be cut)?
I have recently been experimenting with indigo. It was a process I had been interested in for a while but didn’t know much about it. It’s been fun trying out different techniques and I have learnt a lot.
I started off with a very technical approach, asking questions such as what happens if I dip fabric once or ten times, does it make a difference if I use a full strength vat or half strength. I quickly realised that indigo’s unpredictable nature doesn’t lend itself to such a scientific approach.
Before I tell you about what I have learnt let’s talk about what indigo is…
Indigo is a natural dye which is used to dye fabric. Traditionally indigo was used to dye denim but a synthetic dye is now used. I use the word dye loosely when talking about indigo because what it actually does is stain the fabric. Unlike synthetic dyes it does not penetrate the fibres in the fabric but rather holds on to the surface of the fabric. If you dye something with indigo and then cut through it, the middle will still be the original colour. This also means that it is great for resist techniques.
The process for dyeing with indigo is to make up a vat containing various chemicals which create the optimal conditions for the indigo grains. The vat needs to be alkaline for the dye to work. It also needs to be reduced, meaning that the oxygen has to be removed. Salt is also used, as in a lot of dyeing recipes, to ensure the indigo adheres to the fabric. Indigo is not soluble in water meaning that the particles are suspended in the liquid. When the indigo is suspended in the alkaline, reduced solution it is yellowy green in colour until it comes in to contact with oxygen which turns it blue.
To dye fabric… Damp fabric is lowered slowly in to the indigo vat and kept under the surface for 1 – 3 minutes. It is then gently lifted up. It will look green but quickly turn blue as is oxygenates in the air. Once fully oxygenated it can then be dipped again. The number of dips needed depends on the required colour. It is important that as little air is introduced to the dye vat as possible otherwise the vat will become oxygenated and won’t work.
I found that dipping my fabric for about 1.5 minutes and leaving it to oxygenate for about 3 minutes worked well. Some people say that putting your fabric into a citric acid bath after the final oxygenation brightens the colour but I didn’t find it made much difference. This may be more important when using animal fibres as the alkalinity of the vat can damage the fibres, these prefer acidic conditions.
I started off with the idea that I can compare and investigate thoroughly if I start with a control set of samples – cotton poplin fabric dipped as above but with varying dips (1, 3, 5 ,10). Then I could carry on recreating these but varying certain aspects to see the effects e.g. different dip times, washing between dips, using citric acid. However, I quickly realised that indigo is unpredictable. The vat changes as it is used, the indigo concentration decreases with more dips, the vat becomes oxygenated. A 5 dip sample will not be comparable the next five dip sample. It is unpredictable. Which is part of it’s charm.
It was more difficult to get a beautiful even colour than I thought it would be. I found that when it was oxygenating any small inconsistency in the fabric would cause a ‘blemish’. Where water sits on the fabric, either at the bottom when hanging or in the slight creases of the fabric, it wouldn’t darken as much as the rest of it. Also, if a thread from the edge of the fabric sat over it, that part wouldn’t darken as much. This is because the oxygen couldn’t get to the indigo on the fabric as easily. I found that I got a more even colour if I washed the fabric in cold water immediately after each dip. Also the more dips the more even the colour.
I was hoping to be able to get a good light colour as well as the classic dark indigo blue but didn’t manage to. If I did fewer dips I got a light colour but it was uneven and a half strength vat didn’t produce a lighter colour with comparable dips.
The first resist technique above was created by wrapping fabric around a plastic tube and securing it with elastic bands. I found it very difficult to keep the white bit clean and where the fabric was wrapped over itself I couldn’t get the colour as dark as I would have liked. This is due to the indigo not penetrating the fibres as mentioned above. The second resist was created by folding the fabric and securing with bulldog clips. I found that when using resist I needed to dip more times to darken the colour of the fabric wrapped in the middle. It also needed longer to oxygenate and while it was oxygenating it needed to be opened as much as possible without removing the resist to allow the fabric in the middle to oxygenate.
Overall I found the process really interesting and would love to incorporate it in to some of my woven work.
This is only a brief summary of my experiments in indigo but if you would like more information on my techniques or discuss the process please feel free to comment or email me.
After our real life adventure at the Victoria and Albert Museum I was approached by a children’s author, Lucia Wilson. She was inspired by seeing Cedric on tv and wanted to write a book based on our story.
In story one, Cedric is having an exciting time being the centre of attention in the V&A Museum. When a young man called Troy decides to bear-nap Cedric, things take an alarming turn. Freddie and Julie, two young children who witness this crime, decide to play detective.
In story two, Cedric meets the Button Bear, trapped in a dark, miserable basement living with the meanest tailor in London. Cedric gathers a team of chums from London Zoo, Polo the penguin and a cheeky gang of squirrel monkeys, and is determined to rescue the Button Bear and to help him find his way home.
In story three, Cedric sets off to Paris for a long-overdue reunion with his cousin, Velours, a blue velvet cat. Cedric was shocked to see that Velours was now disabled; one of her back legs has been replaced with a rubber wheel after a horrible accident. Cedric’s sadness quickly disappears when he realises that Velours hasn’t let her disability hold her back, in fact, he was thrilled to learn that she was about to run in Le Grand Dash, the biggest race in the Pet Paralympics – and she is the favourite to win!
I created Cedric in 2012 after I graduated from a woven textiles degree in Norwich. The colours have been inspired by the colours of autumn. I just love the muted reds, oranges and yellows found at that time of year. He is entirely made by hand using traditional techniques. His fabric is handwoven using a super soft Tencel yarn with a twill based structure. He is hand sewn together and has cotterpin joints, glass eyes and a stitched nose. Inside he is full of tiny glass beads which gives him a mouldable, sturdy weight.
Just after I made him, Cedric and I appeared on BBC 2’s Paul Martin’s Handmade Revolution. As a winner Cedric was displayed at the Victoria and Albert Museum where he was adopted.
A pique weave is essentially a weft wise cord. It is characterised by raised, wadded areas across the width of the cloth. A face cloth is woven, usually using a plain weave but doesn’t have to be, which is then padded to create a raised surface. At regular intervals stitcher threads, from a separate warp which has remained hidden behind the cloth, are woven in to the face cloth to create an indentation. In the example above the white ends are the plain woven face cloth and the black threads are the stitcher ends.
Two warps are used, one for the face of the cloth and on for the stitcher ends. These are usually at a ratio of one stitcher end for every two face ends. These stitcher ends are used to separate the raised wadded areas and are hidden behind the face cloth when not needed. A wadding thread, usually a thick yarn, is inserted in the middle of each section of face cloth to create a raised surface. The stitching ends are brought up at the end of each section and woven in to the face cloth for one or more picks. This secures the face cloth down and creates an indentation across the width of the fabric between weaving each section of face cloth.
The face and stitcher ends need to be on separate beams to allow the face ends to be woven at a lesser tension so that they are able to raise over the wadding creating height.
A non slippery yarn is best to avoid the weft slipping along the warp. A Pique can be woven as a loose backed cloth or fast backed cloth. This means that the stitching ends are either floating on the back of the cloth (loose backed) or woven into the wadding on the back of the cloth (fast backed). A loose backed cloth is fine when the back is not going to show. For practicality the back may need to be woven to stop it from catching. There are multiple ways to vary your Pique:
The raised, wadded areas can be narrow, wide or a combination of both. However if they are too wide definition may be lost and if they are too narrow they may not show up well.
The stitching threads could simply be brought up for one pick or for several in a more decorative pattern.
The wadding can also be varied. A small amount of wadding can produce something subtle or something thicker will produce a more dramatic effect.
Below are some example drafts.
This draft below shows how the raised area could be woven as either a loose backed pique (1.a.) or a fast backed pique (1.b.). The stitcher ends would be woven in before and after each section.
The face ends (white) are on shafts 1 – 4 and the stitcher ends (black) are on shafts 5 – 8. In the loose backed cloth the stitcher ends are left to float behind the face of the cloth which is being woven as plain weave. In the fast backed cloth the sticher ends are woven as plain weave in to the wadding thread(s).
The wadding thread(s) are inserted in each pick where all of the face ends are raised.
The number of plain weave picks can be varied to make the wadded areas wider or narrower. The amount of wadding can also be increased or decreased to vary the prominence on the raised areas.
This draft below shows two examples of how the stitcher ends can be woven. They are called stitcher ends because they act like stitches holding the farbic down between each of the raised areas. in the first example the stitcher ends would be raised for two picks between the wadded areas before lowering behind the face cloth again. I find that if the stitcher ends are raised for only one pick then they get lost and don’t show up. In the second example the stitcher ends are raised multiple times between the wadded areas in a diamond pattern. These ends can be raised and lowered as many times as desired to create different effects.
These stitcher drafts would be inserted before and after one of the face weaves above. For example you might choose the loose backed face cloth weave above and alternate it with the first of the stitcher drafts below.
