Decorate your home with your own rigid heddle loom woven Christmas runner
As weavers ourselves it is fair to say that our family and friends are well acquainted with the woven gift. Our scarf weaving looms have been used to weave many a scarf which have made beautiful gifts. This year we have set about creating a Christmas runner which could be used to decorate your own home or alternatively could be given as a gift. In this blog we discuss the the creation of our Christmas table runner with a few weaving tips which we hope will bring a touch of handmade charm and personal touch to festive decorations.
Choosing a sustainable cotton yarn for the Festive table runner
We chose 100% double knit cotton yarn for our table runner for a number of reasons. When cotton is handwoven it creates a durable yet soft fabric as well as being available in really beautiful vibrant festive colours. The most important consideration however was that it washes well so that any spills of food or drink can easily be washed away without concern.
Choosing the correct sett for weaving the handwoven table runner
Using our TabbyandTweed rigid heddle looms we weave double knit yarn using an 8epi heddle. This is perfect to create a wool scarf because on washing and finishing the scarf shrinks and felts and a scarf with a nice drape is created. Cotton doesn't shrink so much when washed and we wanted our table runner to be a little firmer than a scarf. For this reason we chose to weave with the 10epi reed which we would normally use for 4 ply wool yarn.
Choosing the colour palette for the Christmas table runner
We like to keep an eye on the trending colours for all seasons and especially Christmas but whilst we are aware of the current trends we decided that we wanted to stick with the traditional Christmas colours. With sustainability at the heart of much of what we do we were mindful of creating a table runner which could be used for years to come bringing a degree of traditional festive charm. Our final colours were the Christmas red and green colours with a light grey almost silver coloured yarn. We decided that the addition of silver would create a colour pop with additional interest to the design. If you are interested in a blog about colour in weaving then you might find this blog interesting - click here.
Designing the pattern of the Christmas table runner
Symmetry and colour blocks were key to our design with small amounts of the silver grey being woven. One of the complexities when weaving with cotton is hiding the weft changes. Because the cotton yarn doesn't felt like wool the weft changes can be very obvious with cotton. The advantage of creating a table runner is that it has a top and bottom side allowing the weft threads to be hidden at the back of the weave. In the image below you can see us finishing the weaving with the green yarn with the shuttle being taken down into the weave to the back. After this step the green yarn was cut off with a 5cm long tail to sit and be hidden at the back of the runner.
The completed runner
After weaving the runner was washed and ironed. There is a degree of shrinkage of the cotton which creates a striking woven fabric.
Christmas runner rigid heddle loom weaving kits
We sell a range of rigid heddle weaving kits for people to learn to weave on as well as weaving kits for those who already have their own rigid heddle loom. If you would like to learn to weave the Christmas runner then it is now available as both kits in our TabbyandTweed website shop for UK delivery and our TabbyandTweed Etsy shop for delivery elsewhere.
Interested in learning to weave? Then our workshop page has all the details found by clicking the link here.
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