I encountered a ‘new’ (to me) weaving technique a couple of months back and incorporated it in my entry for the guild challenge which was primarily about color. I wove my color blocks in three different techniques and one was ‘skip plain weave’ a technique often found in rugs which is ‘one sided’, i.e. the back carries floats over multiple warp threads while the front is woven tabby across the width. More on that later.

While working on that project I thought it might be a way to weave a QR code (for Kiwiweave.com) to hang on the wall behind our stall at the 2024 Birchwood Fiber Festival. After much pontificating I finally kicked the project off a few days back and will document it here.

First step was to generate the QR code. A quick google search will show that there are hundreds of web sites that will generate codes for free. You input the URL you require and the webiste generates it in seconds. You then typically download a jpg or png image of the finished product. Try some out. Go for simple, black and white, and don’t add logos.

Most modern mobile phone cameras will automatically recognize QR codes and pop up the URL which can be clicked on to bring up the web page. My phone didn’t so I loaded a free app that recognizes QR and bar codes and shows you the appropriate information. Useful for checking, at all stages. Using the jpg generated in the first step I then manually drew up the same information on graph paper which I find easier to ‘count’.

The sett of the weaving I did for the guild challenge was 10 epi using 8/2 cotton so I duplicated it for this project but calculated the number of ends needed to give a 15 inch QR code with 1.5 inch borders all around. The size of the logo also dictated that 6 warp ends be used in each ‘box’ of the pattern – either black or white and read one line at a time from the bottom up.

Winding the warp took an hour including setting things up then it was a move out to the studio to dress ‘Gypsey’.

The photo’s above (from top left corner – clockwise): The warp wound on to the warp beam. The heddles threaded and reed sleyed. Warp tied on. Floating selvedge weights. Floating selvedges. Warp packed and ready to weave. All of the above took another 6 hours.

The structure is weft predominant and woven in 3/2 pearl cotton. The border is silver/grey and the actual code is obviously black and white. As I had not tried this level of trickyness before I decided a test piece was needed so wove some borders and just one row of squares alternating between black and white. This little bit of weaving took longer than setting up and that was mostly because of the ‘mistakes discovered that had to be ‘unwoven’. The mistakes were largely counting errors as each weft shot (black and white) through the same shed needs to go over three under three. I wove this with the pattern to the top and the floats to the bottom which slows things down and easily lends itself to miscounting – on the real QR code I will flip this upside down as it should be easier to count and manipulate the top part of the shed. The other mistakes were twisting either the grey or white with the black or any other combinations which then did not sit flat or neatly with the rest of the color transitions. The test piece has at least allowed me to work out a sequence where this doesn’t occur.

Even with meticulous checking there are two errors in the left photo where a weft shot goes over one more warp thread than it should, but this doesn’t show too much and I suspect would not interfere with the camera imaging and working out the URL. I used small plastic shuttles as they have a long thin ‘nose’, next I’m going to find some stick shuttles and see if they make the manipulating of warp threads easier.

The guild already think I’m crazy after tackling the hand tied Turkish knot rug because of how slow it was. I suspect the meeting program where I present this method will only reinforce my craziness. ‘Nothing like a challenge’ I say!!

The Scenic Valley Handweavers 2019 Guild Challenge was to produce something woven but in 3D rather than just flat cloth. Needless to say the pandemic played havoc with the timing and the final ‘reveal’ was not until September 2021.

I had planned something to use the variegated tencel I had used to make scarves for a New Zealand couple – in colors that reminded me of the local Paua shell (known as Abalone here). Combining it with a copper wire in the warp and weft I hoped I might be able to form it into the shape of a Paua shell and then finish the outside with some needle felted wool to imitate the real outer shell.

I was able to order the wire (armature winding wire) in a similar thickness to the tencel – maybe a little more, but fairly flexible. The downside was, of course, the copper wire does not stretch in any way – so conventional weaving where the warp ‘stretches’ enough to form the shed was not going to be simple. The solution was to warp the table loom with alternating copper and tencel and every other copper wire connected to a completely independent warp bar directly behind and at the same level as the back beam. These two bars were then connected with a bungy cord that wrapped around another fixed bar. The tie-up allowed me to weave a tabby cloth that lifted one or the other sets of copper warp wires and when one lifted, the bungy stretched one way allowing half to lift. The opposite shed lifted the other wires.

I had one shuttle with copper wire and one with tencel. Needless to say the tencel behaved as normal – the copper could be pulled out by hand and carefully wrapped around the selvedge which didn’t end up as particularly neat but given that it would eventually be trimmed and then covered as the felt ‘wrapped around’ it wasn’t going to be to much of a problem.

It was fairly evident early on that the copper wire was the ‘controlling’ warp and weft and while behaving as woven cloth it would not allow beating up to the picks I expected – but this was pretty well flying by the seat of my pants. Should I ever use this technique again I’d add more tencel shots between each wire.

The first critical test was once I had woven ‘enough’ for the shell and removed it from the loom – I had to form a bowl and see whether it stayed in place and retained the relative spacing between wire and tencel in warp and weft. Luckily – it did

The next step was to trim the edge (to be more shell-like) and start applying washed wool locks and needle felt them together (and onto the woven surface). I used some ‘slightly’ washed locks to add a little bit of ‘roughness’. I also added some dark wool lines to add some character. The more needle felting the tighter the ‘shell’ got and I carried the outside around the shell edges into the inside – as I recall paua shells tend to do.

A one off effort that turned out pretty well as I expected, although the whole process was definitely learning as I went along. Needless to say a very enjoyable ‘challenge’ and gives me plenty of ideas for improvements for ‘Mk II’