hi all!

I'm new to weaving with a 4 shaft floor loom. After some tabby and twill experiments went really well, I wanted to try Monks Belt. But, as you can see my work does not look at all like the fabric on the picture and I can't figure out why. This is the result of a pedal sequence given by chat gpt, because the sequence given by my book (6 x pedal 3, 6 x pedal 4) only gives me blocks and zero tabby. I have set up the loom correctly.

I am very sure I am reading the book completely wrong, but I have no idea how to fix it. I got the pattern from The Handweaver's Pattern Directory by Anne Dixon (the book visible in the picture). If anyone has an idea, I'd be very grateful. THANKS

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  • Your tabby pics and warp threads should be the same weight. Pattern pics should be twice as thick. So if you’re warping with 8/2 cotton, tabby would be 8/2, pattern should be 8/4.

    parent

    16/2(6720 ypp) is half as thick as 8/2(3360ypp). Try using either the 8/2 doubled, or 3/2 single, for pattern pick.

    parent root

    I had a brain glitch!

    parent root

    also thanks so much for the quick reply :)

    parent root

    tabby can also be thinner! I have warped with 8/2 cotton and used sewing thread as tabby for an overshot pattern and it looked normal

    parent root

    Good to know!

    parent root

    Im really a beginner so I don't really know what that means I saw the 8/2 and 16/2 in the book too, but I didn't know what to do with it. Could you explain?

    parent root

    The numbers refer to the thickness of the thread and number of plies. The lower the number, the thicker the thread. So 8/2 is twice as thick as 16/2, and each has 2 threads plied (twisted) together.

    Actually, I made a mistake in my reply! If I were weaving Monk’s belt, I would warp with 8/2 and use 8/2 for tabby and 8/4 for pattern picks. I hope that makes more sense!

    parent root

    aha I see, ill get some thicker thread and see how that works out. thanks, that makes sense. but another thing I don't get: how am I to get tabby (with thread as thin as the warp) and the pattern blocks (in a thicker thread) next to each other? Do I just switch them with every pick? (no right?)

    parent root

    See Jillbutterfly’s reply!

    parent root

  • I highly recommend joining Jane Stafford’s online guild! It costs something like 100 bucks a year, and there are seasons and seasons worth of videos that you get unlimited access to, so you can dip in and out of things. She starts with the very basics like how a loom works, how to warp, different types/weights of weaving thread, basics of designing your own weaving, and goes from there. She’s a great teacher, and it will give you an awesome foundation so that when you are reading patterns it isn’t quite so much like a foreign language. You won’t regret it!

    parent

    100% agree! I learned a lot from Jane.

    parent root

    I checked out her website and I think I will. It looks very clear and it will probably save me a lot of wasted yarn and frustration. Thanks for the tip!

    parent root

  • There are a number of weave structures that assume one adds a tabby(plain weave) pick in between the pattern pick. Monks belt is one. You need 2 shuttles. In the photo above, the sequence would be treadle 1 with purple, treadle 3 with blue, treadle 2 with purple, treadle 3 with blue (6x), then switch to treadle 4 instead of 3 (6x). Rather than write it out, the patterns say “add tabby” somewhere. Tabby, pattern, other tabby, pattern.

    parent

    aha, thank you :) and are these weave structures generally harder than others (and did I just pick the wrong one for a beginner project) or am I reading these patterns really really poorly?

    parent root

    This book (and so many other weaving resources) just assume a base knowledge that you don't have yet. I don't think this book was intended to teach how to weave, but provide a bunch of patterns for those who do know how to weave. But that never stopped most of us who bought this as one of their first books lol.

    One of the twills towards the front of the book is where I started with my first weaving workshop, twill is versitile and pretty straightforward. But like my friend always says, anything is a beginner project if you're stubborn enough.

    Be stubborn, ask questions, you've got this!

    parent root

    sweet <3 thanks. I got the loom 3 weeks ago and have spent every weekend trying to figure it out. I also did some of the twills in the front of the book and those were fairly easy, so this is really a bigger challenge than I anticipated.

    parent root

    😩 WHY, it's not like it's so space consuming to write the tabby line in on this draft, given how short it is! 🤦‍♀️ (Rhetorical question.) Particularly given how much weaving knowledge seems wrapped up in books....wild. Thank you so much for writing such a detailed explanation!!!

    parent root

    Not harder and fine for a beginner. There is kind of a secret language that takes some experience to decipher. Now that you know about “add tabby”, watch out for “profile drafts”. Another weaving language.

    parent root

  • Your tabby should be the same weight or thinner than your warp and also the tabby should be the same color as your warp.

    parent

    Although a tabby that is a different colour than the warp can work well too! Depends on the look you’re going for!

    parent root

    I was just hoping for a black and red checkboard pattern, so red and black picks

    parent root

  • https://preview.redd.it/jde64et4l6ag1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cb1b7512361157a97fd6d156a3e650ebd6d024f6

    I literally just warped this pattern up. You need to alternate between two shuttles. You go left to right with your patterned yarn. Then left to right with your tabby. Then right to left with the pattern, and then right to left with tabby. It can take a little to get into the swing of it. The patterned yarn needs to be a bit thicker to kinda sit on top of the tabby.

    For the treadling, if you tied up the same as the pattern its:

    1,>3,<1,<4,>1,>3,<1,<4,>1,>3,<1,>4 (first block) 2,>3,<2,<4,>2,>3,<2,<4,>2,>3,<2,<4 (second block)

    And then you just repeat that forever....

    parent
    parent root
    parent root

    I had this issue the first time I wove it too. You can try beating the tabby with the shed open (while you're still pressing down the pedal) or it just might be that your main warp thread just doesn't expand enough to cover the tabby. I really like a wooly yarn for it, and the first time I made it in ended up using an alpaca yarn I never expected to weave with (i bought it to knit lol) but it was a squishy yarn so it lent itself to expanding over the tabby

    parent root