Weaving Techniques

Weaving Technique || Making Angles (and Waves)

How to Weave Angles & Waves || The Weaving LoomIsn’t it funny how a simple or easy technique can have such a large visual impact on your design? Well today’s technique is one of those. I recently received a question on how to make a slight angle in a weave, and it’s actually really easy to do (and fun if you ask me). And I couldn’t talk about how to weave an angle without also talking about weaving waves (so two for one?).  I’ve probably been listening to too much 90s music lately, but another title for this post could have been Push it Real Good. You’ll see why in the steps below:

How to Weave Angles & Waves || The Weaving Loomstep 1| weave a few rows of plain weave straight across your warp threads. This is kind of a base for your angle.

step 2| using your hand, push the weft threads up (or down) the warp threads in the angle shape you want. You may have to push one row at a time, if your wefts are tight, but they will move. And boom, you’re done! Well for the most part, of course there are some more tips I have for you…

How to Weave Angles & Waves || The Weaving Loomstep 3| you will probably want a straight edge to the angle (top and bottom). To make this I wove one row straight across the warp threads (add as many rows as you like, and it can be the same color or whatever you want to do).


step 4| I now have a gap between my white thread and my angled pink thread, so I’m going to fill that gap using the plain weave. I plain weave back and forth, decreasing my rows as they “hit” the pink thread. Using the pink thread as a guide, allows you to fill in the gap without thinking too hard about it, which is really nice.

How to Weave Angles & Waves || The Weaving Loomstep 5| my base shape of the weave is established with an angle, so now I can continue to plain weave whatever colors and shapes and follow the angle as I go. And when you want to stop the angle, just weave a filler row, like I did in step 4.

Don’t feel limited either, you can definitely add different shapes and colors while doing the angle too. If you missed it, I wrote about changing colors in the middle of your weave here.

For weaving waves, here are the steps:

How to Weave Angles & Waves || The Weaving Loomstep 1| just like the steps above, weave a few rows of plain weave

step 2| use your hand to push the weft threads up (or down) the warp threads in the shape of a wave. I just put one in for an example, but you can make it wave all the way across your weave.

step 3| to add your straight edge, again weave a row straight across, under your waves.


step 4| fill in your gaps between the straight row and the waved rows with the plain stitch, using the waves as a template to know when to decrease your rows. Sorry I didn’t have a visual for this step, I included the wave shape last minute since it’s so similar making an angle, but you just fill in the gap the same way.

step 5| with the base shape of the weave established you can continue weaving, following the waves you have created.

Those of you who have tried my free pattern already know about making shapes by pushing weft threads.

Have you added angles or waves to your weaves before? If so, did you do it in a different way? There are many ways to weave and get similar outcomes, which is one of my favorite things about weaving.

Happy Weaving!

Kate

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  • Kitti
    April 28, 2016 at 6:16 pm

    Kate, thanks for explaining this! I was wondering if you could tell me what the name of that needle is in the next to last picture? 😀

  • Marix
    April 29, 2016 at 8:27 am

    Thank you so much for showing how to do a wave. I’ve been wondering how to do those. Can’t wait to try it on the weaving I’m working on.

    • Kate
      April 29, 2016 at 3:37 pm

      Yay! I’m so happy to have helped 🙂

  • Julie
    April 29, 2016 at 10:19 am

    That’s a great idea. I’ve also used heavier yarns to create wonderful waves. I would also like to understand how to put native designs into circular weaving.

    • Kate
      April 29, 2016 at 3:42 pm

      Good idea, heavier yarns would help create waves! I’m not sure if I understand the second half of your comment, are you asking about how to weave shapes (in this case shapes of a native design) on a circular weaving?

  • Jelica@APrettyFix
    April 29, 2016 at 4:31 pm

    Thanks for sharing this tutorial Kate – can’t believe I have not tried this yet! Definitely pinning this one 🙂

    • Kate
      April 29, 2016 at 6:31 pm

      Hey Jelica! It’s a funny easy, yet big visual impact technique 🙂

  • Ines
    July 11, 2016 at 7:46 am

    Thanks so much for this tutorial! One thing I didnt quite get: do you intertwine the white with the pink in the first example or no?
    Much love from Berlin!
    Ines

    • Kate
      July 11, 2016 at 8:02 am

      Hi Ines! No the white is just woven next to the pink. I would have been able to push the pink up more and away from the white if I had wanted to. You really only need to intertwine the weft threads if you’re making long vertical shapes, but since the pink goes across all the warp threads and the white is ascending across the warp threads, the white and pink just sit next to each other. I hope that helped and wasn’t more confusing.

  • Amy Martin
    July 11, 2016 at 8:11 pm

    Does this method tend to pull the shape of your tapestry inward? Would a looser weave on the planned wave help prevent that from happening? Thanks for all your tutorials, I’ve been loving them so far!

    • Kate
      July 12, 2016 at 4:00 pm

      That’s a good point, it could tend to pull the tapestry inward, depending on how tightly you wove your weft threads. It would be a good idea to keep your threads loose with some slack (like you said) and also keep an eye on the side warp lines to see if they are pulling in when you make your waves and angles. If you’re careful and aware, it does work out nicely, I do waves and other shapes like this often. I hope this helps!

  • Sally
    September 26, 2016 at 2:04 pm

    I mistakenly unsubscribed to this website thinking it was another one & now it won’t let me subscribe again. Could you fix it so that I can resubscribe? Thank you

    • Kate
      September 27, 2016 at 2:08 pm

      I just sent you a re-confirm email. Let me know if you have anymore issues 🙂