I have started getting into echo weave, inspired by an article Bonnie Inouye wrote for the current issue of Handwoven. (Yes, I subscribe to Handwoven – I’m not enthused by the recipe nature of the magazine, but they’re virtually the only game in town, and they also occasionally get into structure, so I think it’s worthwhile.)

As far as I can tell it’s a special (albeit very interesting) case of network twills, threading-wise, although it’s quite different in appearance, being a warp-faced fabric. Essentially what you do is develop a network twill threading, then transpose the draft by some number of shafts that is not within 1 of the original threading (i.e. on a 16-shaft loom you could use anything from 2-14). Then you interleave the draft with its transposed draft(s) – 1 thread of the original draft followed by 1 thread of the transposed draft, then 1 thread of the original draft, etc. One setts the yarn at (roughly) double the usual sett, and this produces echo weave – your original pattern with an “echo” in a different color. (I forgot to mention that you use one color of yarn for the original draft threading, and one (highly contrasting) color for the transposed draft. The color contrast is what produces the “echo”.) You can do more complicated things like having more than one echo (if you have a 16-shaft loom), and I think it would be interesting to try.

Anyway, it’s complex enough that I wanted help with it, so Bonnie and I are going to set up a tutoring session sometime in the New Year. She was immensely helpful with understanding network twills, so I’m looking forward to it. I’m hoping at some point to work up to Sandra Rude’s interleaved threadings, about which she has an interesting blog post here.

Regarding my latest project, I dyed the yarn yesterday morning and am impatiently waiting for it to dry (in the oven, of course). It’s gorgeous. The color depends on the light – under incandescent (yellow-y) light it’s a gorgeous dark chestnut brown with purple highlights, while under a bright fluorescent (blue-y) light it’s eggplant-tending-to-brown. Regardless, it’s a gorgeous color and I love it. I’m hoping to start weaving with it today, although I’ll most likely have to wait until I get back. I’m leaving for Chicago today at 2pm and I still have to pack, do laundry, make a last-minute trip to the grocery/pharmacy/post office, finish off the candied orange peel and citron I was making, and clean up the house a little bit so my landlady and/or catsitter don’t have a heart attack upon seeing the place. I am not a neat person (neither is B.) and there is stuff ALL OVER.

I get back from Chicago next Thursday. See you then!