Book Launch!

Weaving Outside the Box: 12 Projects for Creating Dimensional Cloth is now available for purchase! It's been a long road but at last it's ready to launch.

Front and back covers (right and left respectively) for printing

The book is 122 pages long, in full color, with a soft cover and a coil binding so that you can lay it flat as you read and weave. It's also available as an eBook and in hardcover. You'll find all these options on this blog site under the page titled "Publications for Purchase".

Here's a brief description:

"Color and structure are key elements in weaving, of course. But we often overlook the importance of texture. Dimensional fabrics, with their pleats, puffs, and curves, take us 'off the grid', reflecting the organic forms of nature. We can both see and feel the tactile quality of dimensional cloth, which adds much to the beauty of handwoven fabric.

"This book gives you tools to optimize texture in your weaving. Starting with background on the techniques involved, it then offers step-by-step instructions for 12 projects for four to 16-shaft looms: four for beginning weavers, four for intermediate weavers, and four for advanced weavers. As a bonus, there are two patterns that allow you to weave three different projects on a single warp.

"Weaving Outside the Box provides the tips and resources you need to move beyond the two-dimensional plane and rectilinear patterns of warp and weft."

Here are a few of the projects offered.

Among the four projects for four shafts: woven shibori using fulling techniques

Doubleweave layers and ruffles for eight shafts 

using differential-shrinkage techniques

Deflected doubleweave on 16 shafts 

using differential-shrinkage techniques

There are diagrams and even microscopic photos of yarn throughout the book, to help you understand the mechanics behind these designs, all using some combination of active and inactive yarns, structure, and finishing.

I will teach a workshop straight from the book June 11-16 at the Michigan League of Handweavers Conference in Holland, MI. Participants will choose one of the 12 projects from the book and start by weaving up samples so they can learn how to finish their projects to get just the right textured effects.

Dimensional cloth is a specialized area of weaving, one that is sometimes overlooked but has been woven for centuries. My book begins -- and this blog post concludes -- with this quote from Anni Albers, from her definitive book, On Weaving. 

All progress, it seems, is coupled to regression elsewhere. We have advanced in general, for instance, in regard to verbal articulation -- the reading and writing public of today is enormous. But we certainly have grown increasingly insensitive in our perception by touch, the tactile sense.

I hope my book inspires weavers to explore all three of the wonderful tools we have in our craft: those of structure, color, and the tactile sense.

Thanks for reading!

Detail of Echo threading in four-color doubleweave on 28 shafts, 

using cotton/stainless-steel yarn for one of the wefts 

to achieve crinkled layers