26 June 2024
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A Funky and Fabulous Scarf

Have you tried using supplementary warp floats on your rigid heddle loom? It is a great technique for showcasing your funky, fat and fabulous yarns without losing any of their gorgeous details. 

Happy weaving!

Wild yarn may be fat and fragile or gnarly and knotty but the combinations of fibres and novelties are fascinating. In their own right the yarns in a skein or ball are sure to draw attention but how to incorporate them into weaving is a challenge. Used in the weft, some of the character is lost and even the very big 2.5dpi reed can’t cope with some of the really chunky yarn in the warp.

But here is a technique with floats in the warp direction. So long as they are strong enough to be manipulated, even the wildest yarns can be accommodated! These warp floats are added as a kind of supplementary warp, but do not go through the reed. Each length of this pattern yarn can be wound around a small piece of cardboard or left in small balls. They are picked up or pushed down between the warp ends after a number of weft picks, i.e. the wild yarn is either hanging under the weaving or resting on top of it.

Note:it is best done on a loom on a stand, so the pattern yarns can fall unobstructed.
Technique: Plain weave with finger manipulated warp floats.

You will need:
Loom: 25cm (10ins) or wider rigid heddle
Reed 40/10 (10dpi) reed
Warp and weft yarn: Ashford Merino 4ply (100% Merino; 200m/218yds; 50gm) 2 balls Ballet #803
Warp pattern yarn: art yarn cut into 7 lengths each 190cm (75ins) long and wound on mini-shuttles, pieces of cardboard or rolled into small balls

Here’s how:
Total warp ends: 68
Total warp length: 200cm (79ins)
Finished width: 15cm (6ins)
Finished length: 180cm (70ins)

Manipulate the pieces of art yarn by hand bringing them up and above the weaving or push down below
  1. Warping
    Warp 68 ends using the Merino 4ply yarn.

Weaving

  1. Weave a few picks of scrap yarn to spread the warp ends, and then weave about 10 more picks also with scrap yarn, leaving a small gap between these two groups. Check that the warp between here and the front beam is long enough for the planned fringe.
  2. Here comes the only tricky part of this technique – starting the floats. Place the floats equal distance across the warp threads.
  3. Push the beginning end of each pattern yarn down in the gap between the two groups of scrap yarn. The end pushed down should be as long as the planned fringe in the finished scarf.
  4. Now take every second one of the pattern mini-shuttles and push them down after the last scrap yarn pick, taking care not to pull the beginning length up from the gap. Leave the other mini-shuttles on top of the scrap yarn weaving. If you find the pattern yarn too slippery, you can anchor all the pattern ends with a pin each in the scrap yarn weaving.
  5. Begin the proper weft leaving a weft end as long as four times the weaving width. Weave 15 picks. The pattern mini-shuttles hanging under the weaving are now picked up and those resting on top are pushed down in the spaces between the warp ends.
  6. Before weaving again, take a blunt needle and thread the long weft tail into it. Hemstitch around three ends, three picks and catching the pattern yarn end. Continue hemstitching across the width of the warp, incorporating the pattern yarns as you go.
  7. Weave 15 plain weave picks. Change the places of the pattern mini-shuttles, every second going down, the others going up. Continue in this way the length of the warp.
  8. End with 15 picks and hemstitching across the width with the last end of the weft.

There are so many ways to use this technique; you can use two or several different yarns for the pattern, maybe all in one colour, but different textures. Or the other way round, one type of yarn in different colours. Or, with a striped warp, the fancy yarn can be placed between the stripes.

Used as a supplementary warp float, you can weave with really wild yarn
A background warp of cotton and floats of fat green/grey singles plied with a black moderate eyelash yarn

This weaving technique first featured in The Wheel (Issue 25), by Elsa Krogh. Also featuring in Little Looms Fall 2024.
Elsa, who for over twenty years was our distributor for Denmark, is an author and weaver. She has written several books including The Ashford Book of Weaving Patterns from Four to Eight Shafts and featured in many issues of The Wheel including Bronson Check on the Rigid Heddle Loom (Issue 20), Overshot on Opposites (21), and Summer and Winter (23). Many of her patterns are sourced from archival material from local museums. Elsa brings a wonderful sense of continuity as well as smart Danish style.