I’m pretty excited about this current weaving project. For years now, I’ve wanted to weave my own fabric for a custom-sewn jacket. And finally, I’m going to make it happen. In fact, I’m making two of them! Yonca, our sales director (and my boss) caught wind of my plan and requested a jacket for her own. You be able to find us at next January’s TNNA in our matching jackets.
Years ago, I sewed a moto jacket from this Burda pattern.
Here I am wearing my version, circa 2009 or so.
I’ve been wanting to weave with our Deluxe DK Tweed Superwash ever since we introduced it earlier this year, and I decided this would be the perfect project for it. I toyed around with a few ideas for the type of weaving draft I’d use, but in the end I decided on a herringbone tweed. I love the idea of classic herringbone and tweed modernized in the ultra-cool moto jacket.
Before beginning, I knew I need to make a sample of my woven fabric. I mean, if I’m going to be weaving yards upon yards of fabric for two jackets, I need to know I’m going to like it, right? I was also having trouble deciding on colors, and saw this as a perfect example to introduce a little plaid into my tweed and herringbone.
First, I selected five colors from the Deluxe DK palette that I’d been considering:
Next, I set out to warp my loom with a section in each color. I read that it’s a good idea to use a denser sett (ends per inch) when weaving twill, so that’s what I did. For a DK weight yarn such as Deluxe DK Tweed Superwash, I would normally weave with a 10 dent reed. But for this project, I opted for a 12 dent.
I’m using a four harness loom which makes weaving twill a breeze. But with if you have a rigid heddle loom, with the use of pick-up sticks this is totally achievable.
As you can see, my warp has 5 different colors. I also wove with the same 5 colors to see how they all interacted with one another. I found it interesting that the same 2 colors played differently depending in which was warp and which was weft. The color that is the warp (in this particular twill) shows as being more dominant that the weft.
It’s nice to do a “practice” piece of weaving that I’ll actually use and wear!
The colors that I ultimately selected for my jacket are the two that I would have picked anyway, but I’m so glad I did this exercise. It also gave Yonca a chance to see the different colors so she could make her choice as well.
Stay tuned for more herringbone twill and moto jackets!
I love this idea. We teach weaving at our store and sell your yarns. How’s I miss this?
I love that you’ve added this. Weaving is so hot right now. Please continue to keep the RH loom in your minds and instructions as you blog as so many of our customers only have this type of loom.
Thanks, Robyn! We have a Cricket here at the office which is being passed around from person to person, as we all want to learn more. We’ll definitely be keeping the rigid heddle loom in mind!
This is really pretty!
You mentioned this could be done on a rigid heddle loom with pick up sticks, do you know how it could be achieved for the herringbone pattern to be horizontal rather than vertical?
Hi Annie,
Are you familiar with the concept of a weaving draft? It is much like a chart in a knitting pattern. There is probably an existing draft for the kind of pattern you’re describing, but I don’t happen to have it. If you’re interested in making a specific kind of patterning with your weaving, you can design your own drafts. There is a really good resource here: http://www.weavingindiana.org/PDFs/EleanorBest/DraftingBasics.pdf