Supplemental Warp Loom-Controlled Shibori on Four Shafts

In loom-controlled shibori, the loom is used to control the placement of "pattern threads." These threads will be pulled tight, pleating the cloth and controlling the application of the dye. I chose to explore supplemental warp shibori because it scales much easier to a production workflow. With supplemental weft shibori, there are hundreds of pattern threads to pull and tie, greatly increasing the labor for each piece.

At the time that I did this project, I was using a loom with only four shafts. These shafts are used to control the 2/2 twill base pattern of the silk cloth. I have simulated another four shafts by using a piece of 2x4 with drywall screws in it and making my own heddles out of upholstery thread. This would never work for regular weaving because it's impossible to get even tension or a clean shed, and because the process of raising and lowering sets of threads is tedious. With too many criss-crossed makeshift heddles, tangling would be inevitable. This whole thing works fine for shibori because the actual threads are few, the pattern floats are long, and the tension doesn't matter as long as the pattern threads get stitched through the cloth correctly.

I couldn't take a good picture of the tensioning system for these extra threads. They were hung over a rod, each one weighted with its own 1/2 ounce fishing weight. This wouldn't work for long pieces, but worked fine for a single scarf.

[The "control board" for the supplemental threads with 1&2 down and 3&4 up.]


[Behind the real heddles you can see that the patterns "heddles" criss-cross each other]


[The "heddles" doing their work. Notice that the threads pass beneath the back beam, keeping the lower ones far beneath the real shed.]


[The pattern is being stitched into the cloth.]


[Removed from the loom and ironed to help make it pleat consistently]


[Hanging the pattern threads from a hook to help me pleat the cloth]


[Threads pulled tight, ready to dye.]


[Orange is done already, green is being allowed to soak in from beneath.]


[The finished cloth: organic, but regular. See the subtle chevrons?]

In the end, this process is fine for one-off pieces on a small loom, but completely unsuitable to production. On my production loom, however, there are enough shafts that some could be dedicated to pattern threads, making all of this fussing unnecessary. I can't wait 'til I've got a steady enough income that I could dedicate a month or two to bringing loom-controlled shibori up to a production scale.