How to Weave Pinwheels with Fewer Shafts

Have you been gazing longingly at Robin Lynde‘s graphic and cozy Perpetual Pinwheels cowl project from the Winter 2024 issue* *of Handwoven?

“If only I had eight shafts, I‘d weave that tomorrow,” you mutter to yourself, sighing, and then turn the page.

But what if we told you that, actually, you can weave pinwheels on a four-shaft loom—or even on a rigid-heddle loom equipped with two heddles?

Nancy Peck‘s Pinwheels and Stars project, shown in the photo at the top of this post, teaches you how to do it. You‘ll find Nancy‘s drafts, threadings, and instructions for both types of looms right here.

Here‘s a bit of what Nancy had to say about weaving these scarves on a rigid-heddle loom:

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A straight-draw four-shaft twill such as these color-and-weave pinwheels and stars can be woven with two rigid heddles by placing every other warp end in a hole, either on the front or the back heddle, and then assigning the remaining warp ends either to a pick-up stick or string heddles.

With this set-up, four-shaft twills are more practical and easier to weave on a rigid-heddle loom. For these scarves, warping is direct—four dark ends and then four light ends. When warping, you can cut and retie after four ends, which keeps the warp tidy but is a bit tedious. You can also just carry the ends continually, which is faster but a little messier.

Once you‘ve mastered the concept of threading four shafts over two heddles, weaving other four-shaft designs on your rigid-heddle loom becomes a possibility.

Structure: Twill.
Equipment:
• Rigid-heddle or 4-shaft loom, 9" weaving width.
• Two 10-dent heddles or 10-dent reed
• 2 shuttles.
Yarn: Cozy Soft (75% acrylic/25% wool; 213 yd/100 g; Ella Rae).
Sett: 10 epi.
Woven length (measured under tension on the loom): 68" (pinwheels); 72" (stars).

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These pinwheels are a bit more petite than their eight-shaft cousins, but they‘ll bring the same color-and-weave graphic energy to your version of Robin‘s design.

And Nancy includes instructions for a related color-and-weave pattern—stars. Since the threading is the same for pinwheels and stars, we suggest that you track down some cozy wool, put a long warp on, and try them both out!