Just twillin'

The rigid heddle weavers among you undoubtedly know that Liz Gipson (aka Yarnworker) hosts quarterly Weave-Alongs. The Winter WAL is the Tweed and Twill Pillow Cover from her Handwoven Home book. I decided to play along as I've not woven a twill fabric before. Since the specified yarn is no longer readily available, Liz worked with Gist Yarn to create a yarn bundle from Mountain Meadow Wool. This is a bulky 2-ply Suffolk yarn. We got undyed, natural skeins for the wrap and kettle-dyed skeins for the weft - I chose this beautiful blue:

Weaving a twill on a floor loom requires 4 shafts (I think I've got the language right but correct me if not). To achieve this on a rigid heddle loom, you have to MacGyver a bit. You use two heddles for two of the shafts, a pick up stick for a third, and a heddle rod for the fourth. Here's what my loom looks like from above:

In the above photo, the pick up stick is pushed to the very back (at the top of the photo) - it has the Schacht sheep logo burnt into it. The heddle rod is covered in blue masking tape, which is holding the red string heddles on a dowel rod. Technically I only needed tape at the ends, but once I got going I just covered the whole thing. And the two rigid heddles are below the heddle rod, in the middle of the photo.

Twill is a 4-pick pattern:

• Heddle 1 (the front one) up (heddle 2 in neutral)
• Pick up stick (both heddles in neutral)
• Heddle 2 up (heddle 1 in neutral)
• Heddle rod (both heddles in neutral)

Here is how the pick up stick works. This is the view from the back of the loom (not where I normally sit). You slide that stick all the way forward and then tip it on its side - this creates a shed where the shuttle can go through:

It's all jammed up there close to the strings, but the string heddles don't interfere.

When I lift up on the heddle rod, other threads are lifted to create a different shed:

You can see the string heddles a bit easier in this photo:

And when you work the 4-pick pattern, you get this! This is a 1/3 twill, meaning the weft travels under 1 thread and over 3 threads... but it kind of travels:

I think the variation in the weft is really beautiful and will add dimension to the finished fabric.

This is the first time I've used two heddles in a project and I can see how this really expands the range of the RH loom. I'm happily weaving along on this and will tackle the finishing piece down the road. I've fallen a bit behind on the WAL, but that's okay!