Lace Workshop - Part 4

For the three day lace weaving workshop I ended up with five samples to take home. The largest was my own which took me all of the first day to weave. The other 4 shaft pattern was the Window Pane or dented lace I talked about in my past posting. The Basket Weave on 6 shafts was another rather simple, straight forward pattern. I rather like it as it was done here in 3/2 cotton Astra Uki Supreme in a natural shade. I could see the pattern done in a plain table runner or set of placemats.

In the 8 shaft patterns that I got a chance to weave was a variation of the Diamond Huck, the Heart Huck. Some participants had time to weave both huck patterns and you can see the similarity in the designs from the photos. The example of the Heart Huck that I wove was 10/2 deep rose cotton warp at 24 epi using a 12 dent reed at 2 per dent. The effect was quite delicate looking.

The other 8 shaft pattern was a bit of a challenge, but fun to do, the Bronson Lace Alphabet. In this pattern the letters of the alphabet were based on squares 6 high by whatever number wide you decided was a good proportionally looking letter, and the letters were spaced with a block of tabby. I’m much happier if I can plan ahead. So the night before I was hoping to weave the Bronson Alphabet I got a piece of graph paper and did some doodling as if I was cross stitching my initials. The sketching on the graph paper did help when it came to the actual weaving.

At the start of the weaving it was confusing until “the light bulb went on” and then it was easy enough to weave along and correct mistakes fast enough. Except when I forgot the bar for the letter A and didn’t realize the lapse until I was almost done and had to do some reweaving. The technique would be fun to make a banner for the holidays. I wonder if the warp floats could be used to thread a contrasting ribbon so that the letters would show up more from a distance?

As I mentioned in an earlier post Suzie Liles passed along a quicker, simpler hem stitch technique that I intend to start using. It certainly was quicker and just as secure as the one I had been using. I’m just going to have to come up with a good graphic of it to replace the ones I’ve got attached to my looms. I put the starting hem stitch on the front of a business card and the ending hem stitch on the back, laminated it, hole punched it, and hung if from my rigid heddle looms and put it in my weaving bags. A new project for 2009...

Here is the hem stitch directions, as I remember them from my workshop notes.
Use a #18 tapestry needle, start on the right side of the weaving leaving a warp length of 3 times the width of the fabric. The warp length is left dangling at the beginning, weave 5 to 10 rows of the beginning of the hem or fabric. Stop weaving to do the hem stitch to secure the beginning threads, then continue weaving. (If ending a piece of weaving, stop on the right edge, allow 3 times the width of the fabric in weft thread length, cut the weft. Thread a tapestry needle and proceed with the hem stitch.)

A). Wrap the warp around the first group of threads, about 4 warps depending on the thickness of the warp, twice, right to left, because the bundle is the first and it’s on the edge.

1). With the needle on the top of the fabric go up 2 rows of weaving between the two groups of warps, the wrapped warps and the unwrapped warps. Take a stitch with the needle angling down and out beneath the edge of the fabric under the next 4 warp threads. [Therefore the hem stitch pattern for this fabric would be up 2 rows and over 4 warps. The two numbers in the hem stitch vary depending on the thickness of the warp and the effect you want to achieve. The numbers are not etched in stone.]


2). Pull the needle through and put the needle point back to the space along the fell, where the warp threads are unwoven, where the first bundle was separated from the warps and insert it. The needle will be pointed in a right-to-left direction going under the second group of warp threads. When the point comes out *this is the important part* the point of the needle should be within the loop of the hem stitch so that when the thread is pulled through, a half hitch knot is formed on the bundle of warps.

3). Push the knot up to the fabric fell and pull the knot tight. Now you’re in position to start the next stitch.
1). Go up in the space between wrapped and unwrapped warps two rows and insert the needle diagonally down toward the edge of the fabric under four warps.
…Continue onto step #2 and so on…

The workshop was over, the warps were unwound, and the samples cut off and distributed. Suzie Lilies evaluated our efforts and encourage us to weave with linen and not be afraid of it. She was very encouraging and convincing, the caution was use quality linen and you’ll be fine. Here is a photo of our entire group for one last time. A pretty happy group from all the smiles on our faces.

Lace Workshop - Part 2

While the rest of the household was barely waking up, I was up packing my lunch and setting off early, of once, to the lace workshop. My workshop experiences have been very limited and I wasn’t really sure what to expect.

About a month earlier I had received a call from Judie, a member of the SLC guild, asking what loom I would be bringing and what lace pattern I would be interested in warping on my loom. We finally settled on a huck lace pattern on 4 shafts that she later sent me the draft to use to warp my loom.

I ended up using a #5 crochet cotton, Cable 5 by Karabella, for both the warp and weft threads. For some wacky reason I just didn’t want to warp the pattern in just one color, so I did three: purple on the edges, medium green on either side and a lighter lime green in the center. Definitely eye catching.

The pattern was on 4 shafts using 123 threads and a 15 dent reed with one thread in each dent. My Leclerc Voyageur loom had a 12 dent reed so I had to sley the warp threads with this pattern 1-1-1-2 to compensate. We were to warp our looms with four yards of warp for the workshop. Below is my warping pattern for the loom, the arrows show where the color changes would occur.

One the way back to SLC from the Guild meeting in Provo Thursday night in Kathleen’s carpool van, I found out from Deanna and Litza that the workshop was a round robin. We would weave the pattern given to us on our own loom and then move to someone else’s loom and weave their pattern, thereby getting a variety of pattern samples.

It then dawned on me that I had only brought stick shuttle to weave with, thinking that I would be the only one using my loom and I was comfortable using stick shuttles since I weave on small rigid heddle looms so much. But I know other weavers prefer boat shuttles, and I did a small internal panic. Finally I decided if people wanted to weave with a boat shuttle they could use one of their own since I didn’t have any, and just wind the bobbins with my warp thread. I did learn a lesson for future workshops, bring boat shuttles even if I’m using stick shuttles, just in case.


Suzie Liles was an enjoyable teacher, kind, down-to-earth, very practical, and had a good sense of humor. Besides the basic lace weaving material, I learned to use up less warp in spreading the warp before beginning to weave, an easier, quicker hem stitch, and how to tie an additional warp onto the loom using the same threading pattern. The hem stitch was almost worth the cost of the workshop.

I also learned that I must be the world’s slowest weaver. I’m the kind of student I never really wanted to have in class, the last one done. I guess now that I was on the student end and much older, and it’s not for a grade, I’d rather do it right. I can remember a time when I would never redo a section, now I will take the time to tear it out, if it’s weaving or knitting and redo it. Maybe I’m more critical or maybe I know I can do better, anyway I now don’t rush through projects.


It took me all of the first day of the workshop to weave my huck lace pattern with it’s variations as given to us by the instructor. I even took the loom home and after Jack and Katie Jane went to bed I did my homework. After the bowling birthday party the parents and grandfather were wiped out so by nine o’clock everyone was in bed but me. I finally finished weaving the huck pattern and doing the hem stitch to separate the pieces so I would be ready to start weaving on someone else’s loom tomorrow. I stuck a piece of painter’s blue masking tape with my name on it to the weaving, put the loom and stand in the back of the car, and went to bed about midnight.