There are a lot of coulds in my weaving world. As in, I could weave this or that on my rigid-heddle loom—my loom of choice, my muse, my creative constraint, my teaching tool, my thing. (I’m very annoyed that em-dashes are now a sign of AI written text because I use them a lot, perhaps …
I was drawn to the rigid-heddle world because it didn’t have as much formality surrounding it as the shaft-loom world. It seems like this was a loom full of pure potential. Most of the creations were based on how to manipulate the threads regardless of their named interlacements. To me this is more freeing. I …
Three heddles provide a way to translate structures requiring 4 threading positions, or 4 shafts to the rigid-heddle loom. Essentially, a draft is telling you what kind of sheds you need and in what order to weave them. Sheds are created by the threading order and how you lift or lower the warp ends to …
When you first learn to thread two heddles, chances are you learned the standard threading first. This threading can be organized in many different ways to create the conditions for lots of weave structures: plain weave, Hopsack, lace, twill, doubleweave, and Summer and Winter. This setup gives you the ability to manage independently, or in …
My standard advice for managing selvedges is, whenever possible, place selvedges in a slot. This puts less strain on the selvedge threads and allows you more freedom to pick them up with your shuttle. If necessary, you can weight them using an S-hook or similar object. By placing the ends in a slot, you are …
At the beginning of the year, I wrote a post about the four quadrants of a draft. It is valuable to wrap your head around what each quadrant is communicating before you start digging into the details. Most drafts aren’t written for rigid-heddle weavers, they are written for looms that have shafts, and even then …
A few weeks ago, a member of the school’s Patreon community posted this question: “I’m excited about the latest study group. At the same time, I’m learning about shaft looms, and I’m wondering how your brain works, knowing both systems. Do you think about rigid heddle and shaft looms in separate compartments, like the way …
As you explore more weave structures and dive deeper into sett, you will begin to hear the word “density” a lot. This can relate to how you calculate the sett or how you think about the relationships between structure and your materials. Note: This blog post was updated in August 2023 to clarify the different …
One of the challenges of writing a clear-eyed approach to structures for the rigid-heddle loom is that you can arrive at the same structure with many different setups. This is true of many looms, but especially true for the rigid-heddle. Your choice of setup can depend on your available equipment, heddle block style, and personal …
