One of the forms of doubleweave I didn’t intend to try when I was sampling was pleated doubleweave. When I heard one of the other students ask questions about it during a lesson, I got the itch to try it. I’d had enough of a break from sampling to have recovered my interest and enthusiasm.

So I put on a new warp. I was rather distracted by a family matter and completely forgot to wind only one layer of warp onto the back beam so I could weight the other. I had to unwind, cut the red yarns and rewind with just the blue.

I used an old hand weights base rod for the red warp:

I tried a few different ways to make the pleats and found that sandwiching the fabric for the pleat between two rulers then tying them to the front beam worked the best when the pleats were large.

I tried using dowels, too. The dowels were actually a little easier. Better for smaller pleats.

Once off the loom I turned in the hems and sewed them, then gave the sampler a wash.

The wash didn’t close up the gaps in the back as much as I’d hoped.

All in all, it was an interesting experiment but I reckon there are probably easier ways to achieve pleats of fabric on a backing, whether using a loom or not. I’d need a lot more dowels or rulers to make something larger, and I’m not sure how well tying them to the last one would work once the fabric began to turn around the front beam.