Warp faced

More on Wrapping: Use That Number for WARP-FACED Cloth

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What if you didn’t know about how to determine how many warp threads you need per inch for a project? In other words, the ends per inch or epi? And what if you just used the number of threads you wrapped on the ruler for your ends per inch? The warps would be close together with no space left for the wefts—this fabric is called a warp-faced fabric or warp predominant one.

Here is a close up of a woven piece by Thomasin Grim that is almost totally warp-face. That is, only the warps show and none of the wefts are visible. You can see a small area of balanced weave where both the warps and wefts show for comparison. More about that in a future post.

Here is a photo of the whole piece by Thomason Grim where it is mostly warp-faced.

This is an illustration from my book, Weaving for Beginners that shows that the warp threads are so close together that the weft barely shows. In future posts you’ll see the same yarns in balanced and weft-faced fabrics for comparison.

Warp and Weft: Another Spelling Situation

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What do warps, wefts, and woof Mean?
Warps are the threads that are measured out and put on the loom first. Wefts are the threads that cross over and under the warp threads during weaving. I heard one person say, “Warp is the one that has the letter A in it.” When I checked for the definition of woof I first noticed: “a low gruff sound typically produced by a dog.” Further on, “the threads that cross the warp in a woven fabric”. I didn’t follow further, e.g., for woofer!

Warp
We can talk about a warp as a whole or a single warp thread or yarn. Warps are the ones weavers put on the warping board. It’s a strong piece of equipment used to measure out the threads or yarns to go on the loom. A group of threads for a project is called the warp and could inches, or feet, or yards long. Also, a single thread can be called a warp. However, every warp thread needs to be the same length.

Weft
The weft weaves over and under the warps that are on the loom already to make cloth.

Wefts come in any number of packages: Skeins often look like this.

Skeins must be completely unwound for the yarn to be useable. A skein as in the photo is used for dyeing but not for any other use that I can think of. To unwind a skein, you could put on the back of a chair and wind the yarn into a ball.  Then it can be used for warps or wefts or many uses.

Balls come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Weavers can use yarns in any package other than a wound skein.

Cones are another type of package for yarn. They are well known to weavers. The thread comes off easily and fast for making warps or winding shuttles for wefts.

Weft yarns or threads need to go onto shuttles so they can pass easily over and under the warp threads. There are many sizes but this type of shuttle is usually this shape. Usually they are made of wood. The word shuttle means to go  back and forth between two places. Like a space shuttle.

This is a boat shuttle and is much more efficient than the stick shuttle seen before because the yarn wound on its bobbin comes off faster and more smoothly. You can see that it is going over and under the warp threads. In this photo fatter wefts were woven already.