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Weaving Transparency on the Rigid-Heddle Loom
Did you know you can weave transparencies on a rigid-heddle loom? Learn more about transparencies and how they're woven and subscribers can get a bonus project to get them started!
When asked to weave a transparency, I decided that the rigid-heddle loom would be perfect for my first project. The challenge was finding the right design for this first effort. Then I remembered a framed painting hanging in our guest bedroom. My youngest son painted it in kindergarten, almost twenty years ago, when his class was studying Monet. It was perfect!
As the subject of her first transparency piece, Monica chose a Monet-inspired painting that her son, Kevin, now
twenty-six, made when he was in kindergarten. Photo by Monica Shanahan
After consulting with weaving friends at Ruthie’s Weaving Studio in Portland, Oregon, where I teach and was going to do the weaving, I was ready to explore this new weave structure. One of these friends is Gorel Kinersly, a member of our local weaving guild and a well-known weaver of transparencies, so I was in good hands. Gorel lent me some of her beautiful transparencies to study and told me how to handle the inlay. For the best look, she advised me to design the pattern so that the edges of the design don’t increase or decrease by more than one warp thread from one pick to the next.
Armed with lots of great advice, I forged ahead with my weaving. I found that transparencies are a wonderful way to use small amounts of wool yarn, and that butterflies or small shuttles work well for inlaying the beautiful colors. My transparency is complete. My son’s Monet-inspired tulip is floating in a web of fine linen.
Monica's transparency is complete, with her son’s
Monet-inspired tulip floating in a web of fine linen. Photo Monica Shanahan
What is weaving transparency?
Transparency is a method of creating woven pictures by inlaying design threads into a very open, fine plain-weave ground cloth. According to Doramay Keasbey, who literally “wrote the book” on transparency, no one knows for sure where the technique originated, whether in Japan or in Scandinavia, but transparent textiles with inlaid designs have been popular in Scandinavia since the early twentieth century.
In her book Sheer Delight, Doramay says that the ground cloth for transparency is usually woven of linen because its stiffness yields a stable cloth, even at the open sett required for transparency. Wool or linen is traditional for the design weft, but you can choose to use silk or other yarns as well. For decorative hangings that are meant to hang straight, Doramay suggests not laundering after weaving, so that the weaving retains the natural stiffness of the linen.
What you’ll need to make a transparency:
Rigid-heddle loom or any other loom with two or more shafts, at least 10" weaving width
12-dent reed that fits the loom
One boat or stick shuttle for the linen weft and small shuttles, tapestry needles, or butterflies for the design wefts
When asked to weave a transparency, I decided that the rigid-heddle loom would be perfect for my first project. The challenge was finding the right design for this first effort. Then I remembered a framed painting hanging in our guest bedroom. My youngest son painted it in kindergarten, almost twenty years ago, when his class was studying Monet. It was perfect!
As the subject of her first transparency piece, Monica chose a Monet-inspired painting that her son, Kevin, now
twenty-six, made when he was in kindergarten. Photo by Monica Shanahan
After consulting with weaving friends at Ruthie’s Weaving Studio in Portland, Oregon, where I teach and was going to do the weaving, I was ready to explore this new weave structure. One of these friends is Gorel Kinersly, a member of our local weaving guild and a well-known weaver of transparencies, so I was in good hands. Gorel lent me some of her beautiful transparencies to study and told me how to handle the inlay. For the best look, she advised me to design the pattern so that the edges of the design don’t increase or decrease by more than one warp thread from one pick to the next.
Armed with lots of great advice, I forged ahead with my weaving. I found that transparencies are a wonderful way to use small amounts of wool yarn, and that butterflies or small shuttles work well for inlaying the beautiful colors. My transparency is complete. My son’s Monet-inspired tulip is floating in a web of fine linen.
Monica's transparency is complete, with her son’s
Monet-inspired tulip floating in a web of fine linen. Photo Monica Shanahan
What is weaving transparency?
Transparency is a method of creating woven pictures by inlaying design threads into a very open, fine plain-weave ground cloth. According to Doramay Keasbey, who literally “wrote the book” on transparency, no one knows for sure where the technique originated, whether in Japan or in Scandinavia, but transparent textiles with inlaid designs have been popular in Scandinavia since the early twentieth century.
In her book Sheer Delight, Doramay says that the ground cloth for transparency is usually woven of linen because its stiffness yields a stable cloth, even at the open sett required for transparency. Wool or linen is traditional for the design weft, but you can choose to use silk or other yarns as well. For decorative hangings that are meant to hang straight, Doramay suggests not laundering after weaving, so that the weaving retains the natural stiffness of the linen.
What you’ll need to make a transparency:
Rigid-heddle loom or any other loom with two or more shafts, at least 10" weaving width
12-dent reed that fits the loom
One boat or stick shuttle for the linen weft and small shuttles, tapestry needles, or butterflies for the design wefts [PAYWALL]
12/1 linen (3,300 yd/lb), about 225 yards, for warp and plain-weave weft
Yarns of your choice for your design. Monica used an 18/2 wool/silk blend (5,040 yd/lb) and Maypole 3-ply Nehalem (ashlandbay.com; 2,240 yd/lb), both doubled.
A cartoon of your chosen design to put behind the warp as you weave
T-pins and small bulldog clips to hold the cartoon in place as you weave
Warp length: 98 ends 1 yd long (allows about 15" for the woven design plus hems and 21" for sampling and loom waste).
Setts: Warp: 12 epi. Weft: about 14 ppi for the plain weave.
Width in the reed: 8"
Weaving Instructions
1.) Use your preferred method to warp the rigid-heddle or other loom for plain weave, centering the warp and doubling the next-to-outside thread on each side.
2.) Weave ¼" to ½" with scrap yarn to spread the linen. Weave an inch or so with the linen, being very careful to balance your weft with your warp. Do some sampling with your design yarn to see how dense you want it. (You may decide to use it without doubling, or you may want to use even more strands per pick.) When doing this, use butterflies of yarn, small shuttles, or tapestry needles to pass the yarn through the shed. Weave with the design yarn first, then follow in the same shed with the linen, completely across the warp.
3.) When finished sampling, weave enough with the linen for your desired hem width plus 2–3" before beginning your design. Pin your design under the warp, pinning through the sample area that you wove and using small bulldog clips to hold it at the edges. (I tied a string from one side of my rigid-heddle loom to the other under the paper to help keep the cartoon closer to the warp.) Begin your design, following your cartoon and inserting picks of design yarn between the plain-weave picks. Whenever you start weaving with one of your design yarns, leave a tail a few inches long that you can split and weave in later. As you change directions from one design pick to the next, try to increase or decrease your design by one warp thread. Continue weaving as your design dictates, alternating design picks and plain-weave picks.
4.) When your design is finished, weave a few inches of plain weave as in the beginning, then ending by weaving ¼" to ½" with scrap yarn.
5.)Apply fabric glue or Fray Check to the scrap yarn, let dry, then remove fabric from the loom. Cut off the scrap yarn and sampling area, then turn both ends under ½" and press. Turn ends under ½" and press again, then handstitch the hems as invisibly as possible. Hang your weaving using a small dowel or frame, or you can have it mounted so it appears to be floating in glass.
Resources
Keasbey, Doramay. Sheer Delight—Handwoven Transparencies. Petaluma, California: Stellar, 1990.
