Weaving Tips and How To's

This article is the second of a two-part series on how to buy used weaving looms. To get a few different perspectives on this, three friends are sharing what they look for in a loom and some of the helpful things they’ve learned along the way.

Curious how to care for your handwoven piece after you take it off the loom? This post explains how to wet finish and care for handwoven cotton, linen, wool, alpaca, and silk.

Curious how to weave great selvedges? These three tips will help you out! Learn how to bubble your weft, use a 45 degree pinch, and feel for the resistance of the weft.

One of the most common questions from friends and strangers eager to start weaving is how to buy a used loom. This post tells you what to consider as you search for a used loom, and how to make sure you get the loom that will be best for you.

Using floating selvedges in your weaving is an easy way to have more even selvedges with twills or other patterns. This post explains what a floating selvedge is and how to weave with a floating selvedge.

This post has a quick lesson in how to calculate takeup and shrinkage in your weaving, so that you know how much yarn you will need for your project.

Hemstitching on the loom is a simple and easy process that results in a clean, neatly finished cloth. If you’ve ever felt stressed about your projects unravelling or if you don’t have a sewing machine or serger to finish edges, hemstitching secures your raw edge into tidy little groups while it's still on the loom.

Linen yarn by nature requires a little more care while weaving but the finished results are so rewarding. This is especially true if you are using a rigid heddle loom, as the heddle applies more friction to linen warps. These tips will set you up for success when you weave with linen.

Regardless of how careful a weaver you are, we all break warp threads. Sometimes it’s because we’ve beamed our warp funny or we’ve been packing our weft a bit too enthusiastically. Whatever the reason is, a broken warp thread does not spell disaster for your finished textile - and you likely already have all the tools you need!

Weaving project records are an important part of your weaving practice for a number of good reasons! For starters, they help you duplicate a project - by keeping all your information in one place, you can easily make a project again, no matter how long ago you made it. They also help you learn from your past experiences.

This post explains how to adjust a weaving pattern to fit your loom. Resizing and adjusting a pattern to fit your loom’s width just takes a pencil, a bit of paper, and a calculator to help you successfully adapt the project.

What is a balanced beat and how do I know if I have it? Achieving a balanced beat (also known as balanced weave) means that the number of weft picks per inch are the same as the number of warp ends per inch, and thus the warp and weft are equally visible. This post explains how to weave with a balanced beat.

Weaving a sample is like making a sketch - you learn more about your materials, your sett, how things wash, shrinkage rate, and how the finished textile behaves. This post explains how to get the most out of your sampling process. 

This post teaches you how to use string heddles on your rigid heddle loom instead of using multiple pick-up sticks. 

One of the best ways for rigid-heddle weavers to make floats is to use pick-up sticks. This allows weavers to make a third or fourth shed, and break the over/under configuration of plain weave. This post explains how to use pick-up sticks with your rigid heddle loom.

This weaving yarn calculator helps you figure out how much yarn you need for warp and weft for your weaving projects.