How to Weave Other Side Up

Depending on the type of loom you have—rising-shed or sinking-shed—and the original source of a project’s draft, you may find yourself unexpectedly looking at the reverse side of a fabric as you weave.

This often happens with drafts that come from Marguerite Porter Davison’s A Handweaver’s Pattern Book. Her book was written for sinking-shed looms—the x’s rather than dots in her tie-up boxes tell you that. Using the original tie-up results in the reverse side of the fabric facing up on a rising-shed loom (aka jack loom).

If you’re viewing the back side of a draft as you weave and you’d rather be seeing the top side, just invert the tie-up, as shown above. This simple tactic works for any non-skeleton tie-up written for the opposite type of shed.

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Read what Madelyn van der Hoogt has to say about this problem, which she calls a “Weaver’s Rite of Passage.”