Lampas weave: EP4: Lampas on Eight Shafts

Lampas was traditionally woven on drawlooms. Today, the complex patterned versions are woven on jacquard looms.

We had neither.

What we had was an eight-shaft loom.

So the question was fairly simple: how much of lampas could we explore with just eight shafts?

Eight shafts impose their own limits. Instead of controlling individual warp threads, we had to think in blocks, deciding how many shafts could be given to the ground and how many to the pattern. Every choice opened up some possibilities and closed others.

Our first warp was deliberately simple. We wanted to see the structure clearly, understand the difference between tied and untied lampas and watch what happened when different yarns were introduced.

That warp led to another. And then another.

We changed warp ratios, yarns and patterns. At one point we used two warp beams so that the two warp systems could be tensioned separately. Some combinations settled into the structure rather happily. Others made it quite clear that they would prefer not to.

By the end, the eight-shaft loom had taken us considerably further into lampas than we had expected.

And, as often happens with sampling, some of the things that did not quite work taught us as much as the ones that did.

In the next and final article of this series, we look at some of those observations.

This article is part of a series based on the publication Notes from the Loom: Lampas on an Eight-Shaft Loom, available through the Shuttles & Needles studio.