When deflected doubleweave first became a ‘thing’ I was not interested. Back then it seemed to me that people wove this technique in stark contrasts, pushing the ‘deflected’ bit as far as possible. I remember lots of black white, heavily felted textiles that looked pretty unpleasant to my ‘delicate’ sensibilities!
Times do change, and this technique has been calling to me for several years now. Everything has its time, doesn’t it? Since I now live in an area where there is a wonderful DDW teacher, as well as a non-profit weaving center where a few accomplished weavers design beautiful patterns that are woven by trained weavers, I have been inundated by beautiful pieces of Deflected Doubleweave. (Check out Hartford Artisans for a unique organization where experienced weavers train locals who are considered visually impaired, to weave an array of wonderful textiles.)
The teacher is Janney Simpson. You can find her article and beautiful DDW scarf in the Nov/Dec 2016 issue of handwoven. You can also read about her interesting collaboration with weavers in Micronesia. I signed up to take a local workshop with her, and then had to miss it at the last minute. Nevermind about that–she gave me the workshop notebook and the yarns she wanted me to use for warp– a deep green merino/silk zephyr and a deep teal 10/2 tencel. When I finally got down to it, the project went swimmingly well, apart from the glitches of using a new-to-me Baby Wolf with combby. Since then I’ve done a little a gathering of other DDW resources. I’ve done this to have as a reference for future. If it helps you too, I’m pleased.
Here is the link to Interweave’s digital magazine that includes Janney’s DDW article. If you already have Handwoven magazines in your library, Janney’s article is in the Nov/Dec 2016 issue.
And perhap before I get any further down this rabbit hole, I should define this technique. Here is a definition from Madelyn van der Hoogt: “In double weave two layers are usually woven simultaneous, a top and a bottom, while in deflected double weave warp and weft threads of each layer are interlaced. The result is one pattern that produces 2 different looks, one on each side.”
Alice Schlein writes about many weaving explorations. You can find her DDW experiments on her blog Weaverly.
In one of Alice Schlein’s DDW posts, she mentions using a linen/cotton yarn from Gist. Alice documents her weaving samples and even the wet finishing. Very helpful!
A visit to Gist’s website shows they offer a kit for making these two colorways for a wool/alpaca blend scarf. They offer the pattern as a free download, but I could not find it–only a link to a DDW pattern by Elizabeth Hill that I already own.
The pattern from Gistyarn is based on this baby blanket pattern from WEBS. I bought this pattern and look forward to making blankets for my three grandchildren sometime in the near future.
Elizabeth Hill has made a couple of videos showing the technique for dealing with selvedges while weaving DDW. This is a 2-shuttle weave, and one of the wefts does not go all the way to the selvedges. You have to decide how to handle that. Janney teaches a method of having two selvedges on each side that I happen to prefer. Elizabeth Hill demonstrates that here.
In another video Elizabeth demonstrates the method that Madelyn van der Hoogt uses.
I you do a google image search you’ll find lots to enjoy and consider in planning your own DDW adventure–same is true for looking on Pinterest. The DDW time has come for me. I still have plenty of warp left on my first project in this technique, and lots of ideas for how to proceed with the warp that’s left. I just need to spend time tweaking at the combby on that loom to get it to play well with me! Here are my first three samples from that warp.
If two colors are good, wouldn’t seven be better? maybe….maybe not….
How about two colors that are different (but in same color family) as the warp? Hmm…this photo is not accurate. I’ll have to try again when I get this loom working. So far, it has been quite fiddly.
More soon….
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