At my last retreat we were talking about the technique known as WWW or Mountains – which is covered in the Purple Book (Self Innovation) on page 84.
It is a great technique for adding some texture to your weaving if you do a few rows of it here or there. Interestingly it can also be used to shape fabric. I had a weaving in the studio where the bottom flares out to look like a skirt. It was made using this technique in one of the many ways it can be used.
It has sections of mountains throughout and then the part at the bottom that is shaped using mountains.
I decided to create a weaving at the retreat and I did increasing numbers of mountains in the rows, with no rows without mountains.
White section – single mountain in each row
Purple section – 2 mountains in each row
Blue – 3 mountains in each section
Green – 4 mountains in each row
Yellow – 5 mountains in each row
Here’s an example of the 5 mountains being woven. The more dramatic the mountain, the more dramatic the texture.
On the loom it had crazy texture! Off the loom it started to spread out once there was no tension.
Then we pulled it out to the sides and it stretched and stretched because of the extra weft.
This was a 200 thread black cotton prewound which is about 40 cm on the loom. When we pulled the weaving it stretched out to 100+ cm. I wove it quite loosely so it would be easy to pull.
It almost makes a collar! After washing, still looks good.
Pretty cool.
Now if anytime in the weaving, you do a regular row with no mountains, it will prevent the weaving from stretching out like this. So it’s great for texture when used in between regular weaving.
Questions?
Happy weaving
Terri