Echo... Echo... Echo on 8 Shafts

It all started with Handweaving.net, as I'm guessing it does for many of us. 

One of the easiest ways to create an Echo design is to look on Handweaving.net for patterns with advancing-point-twill threadings, such as Ms and Ws, Gebrochene, or Crackle. These threadings can easily be made into Echo designs, simply by clicking "Parallel Repeat" on the "Warp" drop-down menu in Fiberworks Silver and then interleaving a threading line that's parallel to the original threading, separated by an interval of half the shafts you're using.

A bit of weaving terminology here -- because I remember wondering what in the world "interleave" meant as I was learning to work with parallel threadings. I always thought it meant inserting a page into a book. Actually, in weaving, it's sort of like that: You insert a second threading line above the original threading line -- so that each parallel thread is "interleaved" between two threads in the base threading -- A/B/A/B and so on. 

In other words, if you take a simple 8-shaft point draw like this...

You can interleave it with a parallel threading that is 4 shafts above it....

This represents an interleaved threading that is parallel to the original threading (there are lots of variations on this, which I won't go into in this post). Typically in an Echo threading, the parallel threading line is half the number of shafts above the original design, as it is in the diagram above: Threads 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 have a parallel threading line that is 4 shafts above them on an 8-shaft loom. The overall Echo threading -- a.k.a. parallel threading -- is now 1, 5, 2, 6, 3, 7, and 4, 8. Then, when you reach the base-line thread on shaft 5, the parallel thread "above" it is on shaft 1. The reason: Remember that Echo is a technique based on twill, so, just as with a straight twill -- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 -- the next thread for a straight draw is 1. (Because we don't have 9 shafts on our loom, you have to corkscrew around to shaft 1 in your threading in order to weave a continuous twill line.) 

Echo calls for two colors in the warp, one for each threading line. (You can also design Echo using 3 or 4 parallel lines, each with a different warp color, but again, we won't get into that.) Another key to this technique: Echo uses a twill tieup and, typically, a sett that is somewhere between that recommended for twill and that recommended for double weave. Also, Echo usually requires a weft that is about half the grist of the warp threads. These are not rules, just recommendations, helping to show off the warp pattern. (Echo designs are warp-emphasis designs.)

So here's where I began, with this lovely 8-shaft advancing-and-descending-point-twill design on Handweaving.net:

I really like the luminous quality of the chartreuse weft, defined by the grass-green color of the warp.

And simply by clicking "Parallel Repeat" on the Warp drop-down menu in Fiberworks (a feature, like networking, that is only available on Fiberworks Silver), I got this variation:

I confess that I tried hard to find the draft on Handweaving.net so that I could give you the number to look it up -- searching under "Twill," "Ms and Ws," "Point Twill," and even "green," but I couldn't find it! The site is so full of treasures, you could spend an entire day looking at drafts and saving the ones you like....

Anyhow, I decided that the above design was too stretched out width-wise, so I created a version in Jin (which is basically Echo with a tabby tiedown in the treadling) in order to balance the motifs.

I like the simple variation of colors in the warp: bright green and turquoise, with a weft of slightly lighter green. And then, while I was shopping at Convergence in July, I came upon a 4 oz. skein of chartreuse Tencel and a 4 oz. skein of hand-painted Tencel in a variety of blues (at the Eugene Textile Center booth, which was full of temptations). Both skeins were 10/2 -- perfect! And here's the result (another version of the photo you saw at the beginning of this blog):

Along with being one of the most environmentally friendly of all the weaving fibers, Tencel also has a great sheen to it, giving the fabric a gloss similar to silk. Plus it has considerable tensile strength (hence the name Tencel, I'm guessing).

Because I didn't feel like plying lots and lots of fringe -- which is a graceful accent to a scarf but takes a lot of work -- I wove a double-weave tube at both ends of the scarf. All you have to do is fold it inwards, iron it flat, and blind-hem-stitch the sides of the tube together. 

Here's the drawdown for weaving a plain-weave tube on an Echo threading:

I'm considering -- that's the operative word, "considering" -- writing a second book, this one about Echo, offering designs for 8 shafts only, as that's the easiest way to learn this technique and 8 shafts seems to be the number of choice for the majority of weavers. This pattern would be one of them and, of course, I will have to weave up another 11 projects before I even start writing the book. So, if this book gets written, it will be a while....

Thanks for reading!