What is weaving?

by

Spinning Ginny

     Well, first let's go over the basics.  There are many ways to make cloth.  Most of you know that knitting involves 2, 3 or 4 needles (depending on the project) and a continuous strand of yarn.  A knitted fabric is a series of interlocked loops, as is a crocheted fabric.  However, to crochet, one uses only on hook, instead of 2, 3 or 4 needles. In addition to looped fabrics there are those made by twisting yarns together, knotting them, felting unspun fibers, and others.

     Where as woven fabrics is easily the largest and oldest category, and is what I am talking about in this guide.  In woven fabrics there are two sets of yarns (or threads), crossing perpendicular to one another.  One set is called a warp and, the other set a weft (in some places it is called a woof).  You may remember when you were a child making potholders on a small frame or using a needle to weave through yarn stretchehed on cardboard.  When using the cotton loops or the needle threaded with yarn, you would pull the threads over and under, over and under the threads that were held taut on the "loom" or cardboard.  You were  weaving then, and the only difference now is that you now may have a more sophisticated loom.

     A loom, whatever, kind it is, is still a device that hold a set of yarns or threads taut so that it is easy to weave other yarns or threads over and under them.  The yarn attached to the loom is the warp.  The weft is the cross threads that are woven over and under the warp threads.  There are looms that are more elaborate then potholder or cardboard frames, these have mechanisms that raises and lowers some of the warp threads at any given time, so that when the weft is passed across, it automatically goes over some warp threads and under others.  This space that is created is called the shed, and the tool that carries the weft throught the shed is called the shuttle.  Different looms have differnt ways of making sheds, depending on what kind of fabric you want to make and just how fast you want to make it.