Category Archives: Craft History

Great Cover-Ups

24 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by in Craft History, Opphämta, Weaving Inspiration

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In the dictionary, to cover is to place something upon, over, or in front of, so as to protect, shut in, or conceal; to hide or screen from view or knowledge, often used with “up”.

There are fashion cover-ups, like the items one wears over a swimsuit at the pool or beach.

There are sun screens to protect us from sunburns.

First hanging cloth fresh off the loom

First hanging cloth fresh off the loom

And of course, there are scandals and cover-ups meant to conceal truth. But that’s not where I’m going. Lately, I’ve been intrigued by textile cover-ups.

We have long used home textiles to hide what we want to protect or don’t want seen. A tablecloth can protect a good table or cover a scarred table and dress it up for the holidays. Sofa covers protect the good upholstery from pets and wear, and also hide the evidence of said pets and wear. Curtains cover our windows for privacy. Bread towels cover the newly baked loaf for cooling.

The Scandinavians have a couple historical textile traditions that I’ve been enjoying. One are the “hanging cloths.” Prior to the 19th century, in the day of flue-less fireplaces, the walls and ceilings would get sooty. On special occasions, hanging cloths covered up those dirty walls and ceilings, giving the room a fresh look.

According to Lillemor Johansson in Damask and Opphämta, these were white linen or cotton with colored patterns bands. The patterns were woven in opphämta or monks belt on a plain weave ground. In some communities, the patterns were all blue. In other places, the cloth could be red, blue, or a combination of colors. Braided fringes often decorated the ends.

Another historical Scandinavian tradition is the show towel. Towel bars must have had two bars, one closer to the wall than the other, but I’m just guessing on that. The idea was to hang a pretty towel in front to cover the utilitarian towel hung in the back. Family was presumably taught to only use the back towel.

We still have examples of “show towels” in our homes. My mother had special guest towels that only came out when company was coming. And woe to the child who inadvertently used one after coming in from play!

I like the decorative borders and finishes of these old textiles. I don’t have a flue-less fireplace—or any other kind for that matter—but I like the idea of woven wall hangings to dress up a room. Changing them out for the season can give a room a facelift without a major remodel.

Right now, I have a white 8/2 cotton warp on the drawloom for some of those opphämta hanging cloths. The first one is finished and I’m considering patterns and colors for the next one. It is both challenging and satisfying to design at the loom, choosing which border to balance the last, how to use the colors I have on hand to their best advantage. And it’s fun to see the pattern develop with each row.

These are my favorite kinds of cover-ups. What are yours?

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What Goes Around…

12 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by in Craft History, Towels, Weaving Inspiration

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Red Cotton Towel woven "as drawn in."

Red Cotton Towel woven “as drawn in.”

You know the old saying : What goes around, comes around.  This is certainly true in weaving, but I can always learn more from early weavers.

For some time, I have belonged to the Early Weaving Books and Manuscripts study group through Complex Weavers. Through the years, members of this group have worked to find and preserve old weaving drafts and manuscripts. The eastern United States had quite a number of professional weavers in its early days and they often kept account books, recording not only what they charged for weaving, spinning, and dying, but also often their patterns. Apprentices began their studies by copying their masters’ draft books, sometimes even including doodles in the margins. These manuscripts are treasured when they are found. And often, they are digitized so others can study and weave them.

Handweaving.net is a wonderful archive of over 60,000 weaving drafts and documents, many of which are public domain according to the site. I can get lost browsing through these patterns; they offer a glimpse into what weavers were doing 100 or more years ago.

Red and Plum Towel woven "as drawn in."

Red and Plum Towel woven “as drawn in.”

And these drafts do take study. Weaving notation is pretty consistent now, but early weavers had their own notation conventions and it isn’t always apparent to us in the 21st century what the weaver of the 1700’s meant by his marks. Does the pattern go from left to right, or right to left? Does the first line represent the closest shaft or the farthest? Many times, all that is shown is more like a musical staff than a pattern, a set of horizontal lines with a series of tick marks. Sometimes there is a tie-up, many times not. Rarely are there any directions on the treadling.

This is what makes these early drafts fascinating.

I particularly like the fancy twills that often show up in these old manuscripts. I picked one from the Jacob Snavely manuscript for my recent towel warp. It’s called variously Ms and Ws, or hin und wieder. I’m told that’s German for “back and forth” which is really quite descriptive of the motifs. They are characterized by fancy diamonds within diamonds, crosses, and stars.

Tangerine and Reg Towel woven in point twill.

Tangerine and Reg Towel woven in point twill.

The draft I picked was just a series of lines over lines, but it did have a tie-up included. After making some adjustments to suit my taste and yarn, I had to decide how to treadle this draft. Often these old drafts were treadled in the same order as they were threaded (woven “as drawn in” or “trompt as writ”). But there are other possibilities. In some of my towels, I did weave as drawn in, but in the orange one, I treadled a simpler point – just back and forth. Both designs are pleasing.

Now the warp is off the loom, but I don’t want to leave the design just yet. I’m in the process of tying on another warp so I can play some more. This new warp will feature blue, rose, and natural. We’ll see how far I can go with this early draft.

A Weaving Study — Or “How Did They Do That?”

17 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by in Coverlets, Craft History, Doubleweave, Weaving Inspiration

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For the last couple months, I’ve been reading The Coverlet Book by Helene Bress (2003, Flower Valley Press, Inc., Gaithersburg, Maryland). What a fascinating study of how our forebears elevated necessary household textiles to works of art!

The Coverlet Book by Helene Bress

The Coverlet Book by Helene Bress

Ms. Bress examined early coverlets and coverlet fragments over the course of many years, documenting the weave structures, the materials used, the design elements, and the history of the pieces if available. She recorded her first impressions of each coverlet or fragment, and analyzed the weaving. There were anomalies in some of the pieces and she delved into the possible reasons without passing modern judgement (21st Century weavers like rules that may not have been important to 18th and 19th Century weavers!)

The first volume is on overshot while the second volume covers twill, doubleweave, summer and winter, blended structures, and various other designs. Some coverlets were woven by professional weavers, but many overshot coverlets were woven at home on simple 4-shaft looms with home-dyed wool and homespun cotton or linen. Some of the earliest designs were Monks Belt – two blocks only. From there, the weavers played around with designs and over time, the designs got more and more elaborate.

Seeing the block designs in these volumes just confirms my fascination with traditional pattern weaves. What an array of designs can spring from one threading! How exciting to see how a pattern changes when the threading starts at a different point in the draft!

Doubleweave Placemat in Blue and Yellow

Doubleweave Placemat in Blue and Yellow

My current project has been a snowball and pine tree draft that is fairly common in coverlets. However, instead of weaving the blocks to form those snowballs and trees, I wove the blocks in straight order, one following the other, without combining them. From there the design evolved. This week the third rendition came off the loom. Here the blocks are just treadled in point order—zig zag order if you will. I like this pattern, but it is slower to weave because the blocks change constantly.

As I page through The Coverlet Book, I dream about weaving a coverlet. Maybe…someday…who knows! For now I am inspired and will keep exploring!

Old Books, New Friends

21 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by in Craft History, Weaving Inspiration

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Old books, new friends

Old books, new friends

I love old books! It’s a trait I get from my mother, who loves nothing better than browsing through the thrift store book bins, looking for treasures. Whenever she finds anything remotely related to weaving, she picks it up for me. Sometimes these finds introduce me to different techniques, like the Ann Sutton/Pat Holtom classic Tablet Weaving. Sometimes it’s just a really old book that looks interesting, like the 1917 edition of Textiles: A Handbook for the Student and the Consumer by Wollman and McGowan complete with somebody’s handwritten class notes. She got that one for $1.00.

1917 Textiles book with notes

1917 Textiles book with notes

I can get lost in these books, skimming the yellowed pages and trying to figure out the convoluted sentence structure and arcane references to equipment long out of use. But the study is worth it. There are skills these weavers used that we’ve forgotten and I want to glean everything I can from these early teachers.

This past Christmas, I acquired two “new” old books. Our guild’s holiday party includes a gift exchange and I was gifted with Fabric Painting and Dyeing for the Theatre by Deborah M. Dryden (thank you, Patti!), a 1981 study of fabric manipulation for theatre productions. Fascinating what can be done!

Then on Christmas morning, my husband gave me the 1956 edition of Manual of Swedish Hand Weaving by Ulla Cyrus. This is a classic!

Swedish weaving classics

Swedish weaving classics

When I bought my Swedish loom in 1993, there were two books experienced weavers recommended: Damask and Opphämta by Lillemor Johansson and Manual of Swedish Hand Weaving by Ulla Cyrus-Zetterström. Johansson’s book quickly joined my library; the step-by-step instructions for damask weaving guided me through many a warp. However,  the Manual of Swedish Hand Weaving was out of print. So I waited. Good books are often reprinted at some point. Now my wait is over. I have a new friend!

Since Christmas, I have been poring over the pages of this early edition, deciphering the details of weave structures and studying techniques I’ve practiced without understanding. (I admit to being able to follow a “recipe” without understanding the basis for it.) I hope to glean new understanding as I study this classic further.

Loom Envy

02 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by in Craft History, Looms, Terminology

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Many years ago, I heard a well-known weaver speaking at a conference. He joked that whenever he wanted to change threadings, he just went out and bought another loom. At least I thought he was joking and all us in the audience laughed with him. But now I wonder if, indeed, he was just being honest.

You see one of the most time-consuming tasks of weaving is threading the loom. Each thread has to go through a heddle and a dent (a slot) in the reed (the beater). Patterns weaves like damask and double go through two heddles and the reed. Some warps have hundreds of threads. So for that conference speaker, it was more cost-effective to buy another loom than to keep rethreading every time he needed to change patterns. I don’t think I can make the same argument.

One alternative is to put on very long warps. For me, “very long” is defined as 20 yards. One of my friends routinely puts on 21 yards. Some weavers put on 50 or more yards. The longer the warp, the more fabric you can weave before you have to re-thread.  But what if I get bored with the pattern after 10 yards and there are 20 more to go? What if I get an order for something that needs that width, but there are 20 more yards to weave before I can change warps?

Loom threaded with damask, using drawloom shafts.

Loom threaded with damask, using drawloom shafts.

Earlier weavers had a solution for this. Their looms had pieces that could be interchanged. There are references in their records to “gears” which controlled the pattern. When they needed to weave an overshot coverlet, they put that “gear” into the loom frame and tied on a new warp. If they needed to weave dimity, they stalled that “gear.” So it sounds like they had a limited number of loom frames and multiple “gears” to weave the various patterns they offered.

I’ve tried to imagine what these gears were. I have an antique Newcomb loom which has a cast-iron device that changes the shed and advances the warp every time the beater is pulled. Is this what they are talking about? If so, it would be pretty heavy to change out when a new order came in. Or are they referring to the actual shafts with heddles? I can see bundling my threaded shafts and carefully rolling them up to preserve a threading, but it would work better if I kept the threads in the reed and bundled the reed with the shafts. That requires extra reeds.

All this discussion is really an attempt on my part to fend off “loom envy.” For the past year, I’ve vacillated about getting another loom. I’ve pretty much decided that it’s not necessary, but there are times when I really could use another wide loom. A girl can dream!

In Homage to Our Grandmothers

17 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by in Craft History, Weaving Inspiration

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My Grandmothers leave me in awe. Both of them raised families during the Depression. Both were farm wives—women whose days started early and ended late. Both helped work the farm. Both grew expansive gardens, preserving the produce at harvest. Both cooked from scratch to feed hungry families. And yet both found time and energy to make beautiful things!

Grandma K

Grandma K

Grandma D

Grandma D

These women were experts in the art of making do with what was on hand to create lovely accents for their homes and their families. My mother tells a story of her Grandmother seeing a doily in a store window, studying it, then going home and making one just like it for herself. Growing up, I just assumed that everyone’s Grandma did what mine did. Some did; some didn’t. Both Grandmas crocheted and knit. One also beaded, quilted, sewed as well — and she wove rag rugs.

I bring them up because I really appreciate that they exposed my parents, and then me, to the joy of working with my hands and that I can try to make something beautiful too.

Crafts Yesterday and Today

23 Friday May 2014

Posted by in Craft History, Tatting

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My parents visited this past week and as usual, we enjoyed many conversations revolving around our UFOs (unfinished objects), current projects, and things we will get to one of these days. Mom patrols used book stores and thrift shops and came across some old Piecework magazines. This is a wonderful publication, covering every kind of needlework from around the world and giving the history to go with the projects. When she finished with these back issues, she passed them along to me.

Piecework Magazine Jan/Feb 1996 (left) and Nov/Dec 2004 (right)

Piecework Magazine Jan/Feb 1996 (left) and Nov/Dec 2004 (right)

I was delighted to see articles on tatting to follow up on my recent exploration of that craft. One even describes threading small beads into the tatting—now there’s something I have got to try!

But something else is intriguing in these back issues. Since I started reading the magazine, knitting has featured prominently in the projects—knitted lace, knitted mittens, knitted sweaters. These older issues do have knitting, but counted cross stitch is a central technique—embroidered yokes, embroidered ornaments, embroidered samplers—and more quilting than appears now.

Handwork is fluid. Crafts ebb and flow in popularity. When my grandmother told me that tatting was a dying art, little did she suspect that within 20 years, it would experience a resurgence. In the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, weaving and spinning were very popular. Many of us who are weaving now, learned then. In the past 10 years, though, it seems like there are fewer of us actively weaving and fewer weaving publications. Give it time though. Weaving is an ancient skill and those of us still weaving keep sharing what we know so that future generations can join the web in their own time.