Two-Harness Design Methods

'Many variations are possible on a two-harness loom, using Plain Weave or Tabby as a basic texture. One can warp the loom with any succession of colors, forming beautiful stripes in the warp; one can weave stripes across plain warp, thus forming stripes in the weft; one can weave stripes across a striped warp, this forming plaids. One can use heavy threads between fine threads in both warping and weaving, this forming texture lines. One can also weave designs in color on the background of Plain Weave by laying additional design threads in between the regular rows of Tabby. This is called "Laid-in weaving."'

Warp Stripes
'The very simplest way to get beautiful color effects in one's weaving is to plan a striped warp of different colors.' Since you have had an introduction to making a weaving draft, use the graph paper below to design a weaving with two even bands of color. 'Two contrasting colors may be chosen, or two shades of the same color may be used. The bands may be of any width, containing any selected number of warp threads. Stripes 1 to 2 inches wide, or even as wide as 6 inches, look well in light and dark alternation. Again very narrow stripes give unusual effects. Even one or two light thread and one or two dark threads arranged in regular alternation are most effective.

Equally interesting, if not more so, are stripes having widths in the proportion of 2 to 1 or 3 to 1. Such a design may consist of 2 inches of the first color and 1 inch of the second color, or 3 inches of the first and 1 inch of the second, the two colors occurring in regular alternation.'

Look at the example No. 1 below. Weave this draft on your sample loom. Decide what two colors to use but try to chose colors that have a nice contrast. Place the dark color or the light color at each selvage if possible.

'To weave across a striped warp, one can use a single continuous weft of unchanging color. The entire length of the material will then appear in a vertical design of the warp stripes planned. Since the weaver does not have to stop to change weft color, the weaving goes rapidly -- first through one shed, then back through the other shed. The color of the weft should blend in with the color of the outside warp stripe, so that it will not show too much at the selvages, when it forms loops in reversing.'

'One can alternate two colors in the warp, forming a mottled texture' as in No. 2 below. 'Here a cross in a square on the paper plan means to thread a dark color on harness 1 'or slot 1 on a rigid-heddle loom'; and a circle means to follow this dark thread with a thread of a light color on harness 2' or the hole on a rigid-heddle loom. 'One can weave this kind of warp with a weft that is all of one color; or one can use alternately two shuttles containing different colors to form first a row of one color and then a row of the second color. This will bring out the pebbly effect still more.'