Good morning everybody (or whatever time it is by you)! I hope you had a good weekend. This week I'd like to talk about another weaving book found in my local library. If you're not a fan of weaving, don't worry, I have been browsing the section title by title, so a lot of them were together for obvious reasons. So, while I've got one more weaving book review next, after that I've got a nice little collection of crochet books to review, so hopefully that will be more your speed! But, enough about the future, let's get into this book!
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| Photo credit Abe Books |
This book was originally published in 1981, and visually, it's very apparent. The visual stylings are very apparently inspired by the 1970s aesthetic, from the gold and burnt orange bowline knot on the cover to the font choices and title headers, all the way to the monochromatic line drawings for illustrations. However, the dated visual aesthetics of the book belie the timeless information inside.
The book opens with a discussion on setting up a studio space and the furniture choices the author feels will give the best results. I felt it was a little outdated to assume someone engaging in a hobby like this would necessarily have the space (and the income that implies) to have a dedicated studio, even if we use the term "studio" to mean "corner of the living room." Then again, the assumption of this book is that you'll be using a 4-harness floor loom, and if you're capable of buying an enormous piece of furniture that costs north of $1000 just for a hobby, the assumption is probably not that far off. It also contains information on setting up the loom and assorted accessories and accoutrements that such a space would need or at least be desired, which is excellent for people who are getting started out and don't have someone local to ask these types of questions to. These days with the internet you could probably also search up those kinds of information, but on the other hand, with all these "AI assistant" answers being prioritized, books like this may become an increasingly easier source of authoritative information to find.
The next chapter is one that I don't find discussed often enough in craft books and which is often shallowly discussed when it is: fiber choice. However, I found this discussion very thorough. It ranged from matching fiber to intended use, best methods for storing, using, and managing yarn in a project, how to mix and match different fibers for intended results, and creative ways to use leftovers to reduce waste. The advice was honestly pretty timeless and still good suggestions for today
The third chapter discusses how to design and plan a project, which I found very informative as someone who is still a pretty rank beginner myself. It's very focused on treadles, because of the assumption of what kind of loom you will have, so that wasn't much help to me as someone using a backstrap loom, but there was discussion of conversion for inkle looms and card weaving. Plus, the information on planning yarn usage, warping, diagramming (and reading diagrams) of weave structure, and the other aspects of planning were useful to me; I imagine if you're using a pin loom, inkle loom, or other kind of loom, those aspects of the chapter would be useful to you as well. There's also discussion on what width to weave if you're planning to use the cloth as yardage for sewing projects, something that I definitely aim to do later on, as well as tricks for things I didn't really understand, but probably would with more experience, so I assume that means there's at least a few tricks in here that more advanced weavers would be interested in as well. There's definitely an assumption that most of your weaving will be for yardage, so there's much less discussion about tapestry weaving than in some of the other books I've read, so if you're a tapestry weaver, this book might not be a good match for you.
In the fourth and fifth chapters we finally get to setting up the loom and completing a project. I know there would definitely be people who are annoyed that a book titled "Weaving Tricks" spends the first third of the book not technically discussing weaving, but I think the author was being very thorough and the progression of topics is very logical, at least to me. In order to start weaving you have to have a space to do it, understand the materials you'll be weaving with, and figure out what to weave and how to do it. There's lots of tricks in these chapters that I assume more experienced weavers are probably familiar with, like what to do if you accidentally warped the loom too short for your project or if you crossed some of the warp the wrong way or what to do if one of your warps snaps. If you're someone who has already been weaving for a while, this is probably second nature to you, and so probably this not very helpful, but it was for me as someone who does not have a lot of personal experience nor anyone local to ask questions of.
The final chapter focuses on finishing, and this too I was especially grateful for. A lot of the other materials I'd read about weaving up til now kind of assumed you'd already know what to do, or I guess assumes you have someone to ask about it? Anyway, a variety of finishes are discussed and demonstrated very clearly in line drawings. Actually, the illustrations are something I haven't discussed so far, but they really are very well done. The line drawings are very simple, but that simplicity makes it very clear to see what is needed and intended to accomplish what is being depicted. For most of what is being illustrated, I actually think photos would have been less clear, because a photo would have a lot of extraneous information in it that would make it harder to tell what was intended or the order of operations, the orientation of different elements, etc.
In all, I think this is a really good reference book for a beginning weaver, possibly even up through intermediate as a way to reference rarely used but helpful techniques. It's probably not as useful to someone advanced in their weaving, but I'm not certain they were the target audience anyway, based on how the book was laid out and illustrated.
To find this book near you, either in a library or for sale, check out it's entry on WorldCat.org, a neat little website that lets you search library catalogs and helpfully also links to online and local sellers (where applicable) that list books with that ISBN for sale. I've found lots of interesting books to borrow via Inter-Library Loan through this site, so if it's not available locally, but you're interested in reading it, bring this info to your local library and see if they can have it sent over.
Happy Reading, and have a good week!
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