Un-sett-led

Lisa: I have been unsettled in my weaving life lately — thinking a lot about "sett" and its central place in our pursuit of good cloth. Having worked with Becky Ashenden at Vävstuga Weaving School (who leans towards a tight sett) and currently working with Jane Stafford (who likes a looser sett), my long-held assumptions about the “right” sett have been challenged.

Véronique:  In our weekly conversations on Zoom, Lisa got me thinking about sett in a more abstract way and where sett fits in the greater picture of making good cloth.

L.: Industry is serious about sett and uses intricate mathematical analysis of yarn weight, grist, diameter, and structural interlacement (as well as sampling) to avoid costly mistakes.

We hand weavers typically take a more scattershot approach. We use (and when I say we — I might mean me) experience, plus a combination of the recommended setts from yarn companies, wraps per inch, the recommendations of friends and colleagues, the Ashenhurst formula and Handwoven's Master Yarn Chart. Note to new weavers—you can make use of the sett chart even if it doesn’t list the exact yarn you are working with by finding a yarn with a close ypp and using the sett recommendations for that yarn as a guide.

V.: I would call our “method” informed guesswork rather than scattershot.

Our personal experience is supplemented with calculated setts (a theoretical approach borrowed from the textile industry, to be used as additional information rather than gospel). Calculated setts can also be used in the art of yarn substitution.

L.: Occasionally we also sample to reach our sett goals. I think of samples in broad terms — a towel is a sample to me :-) As I racked my brains for a recent example of when I sampled for a project, I honestly couldn’t think of one. I think I have a high tolerance for mistakes. I don’t recommend my approach. As I write about it, it seems very wasteful.

V.: I am a stingy weaver. I don’t like to “waste warp” on samples. Of course, this aversion can turn into a “penny wise, pound foolish” situation. So I do sample, occasionally. 

I usually sample when I have a pretty good idea of what the sett is (from the various information sources and experience Lisa mentions), but I want to make sure before committing to the cloth. I beam the warp at the expected sett (or slightly wider), thread, and sley the reed at (usually) three setts side by side: the expected sett, a looser sett, and a tighter sett. I try to divide the warp so I have roughly the same width in reed for each sett. Then I weave with the three corresponding beats, and measure and try to keep notes of where is what. I cut off the sample, wash and dry it, and decide which sett I like best. I don’t get a lot of cloth at each sett, but it’s usually enough to get a fair idea of how close to the mark I was. (This method is not going to cut it if you need precise measurements of shrinkage, take up, etc.)

The beauty of this sampling method is that you have to cut off the sample in order to resley, and so you can finish it and really tell what the finished cloth looks like.

L.: We often take our available reeds into account, and when a sett of 22 would be preferable, we might "settle" on 20 or 24 to move our project forward if we have 10 or 12-dent reeds at hand.

Known corner of the universe

L.:  In my studio, I have a pretty wide range of colors in a limited variety of yarns (I have my go-tos in cottolin, linen, wool and cotton), and because I use these yarns a lot, I have an intuitive grasp of how to sett them for a variety of structures. And I use that information for venturing further into new or new-ish territory. Or so I thought . . .

Recently, I have had a few experiences that have shaken my confidence in this approach, not simply for textiles that I make for my own use, but more specifically for classes and patterns.

The first of these experiences was during a class I was teaching at Harrisville. I had woven quite a few samples for the class—all using the same yarn at the same sett. The theme of the class was how to max out possibilities on a straight eight threading, and part of the mission was intended to be experiencing and analyzing how different structures respond to the single sett. So we adjusted our beats and expectations, and chose our favorites. However, there was one sample that caused frustration. It was a supplemental weft that offered a lot of exciting possibilities, but the students had a hard time beating it square on their Harrisville looms. I had no memory of struggling with the beat on my go-to home loom—a 36" Schacht standard floor loom. With a little coaching and muscle we got some squared samples, but the struggle was real.

The second experience that added to my unsettlement, was hearing from Dawne Wimbrow at Lofty Fiber in South Carolina. Dawne has a lovely shop, sells and uses predominantly Louet looms, and she has generously been carrying a few of our patterns. She also conscientiously weaves them herself in order to better help her customers. She reported that she was having a hard time beating one of my patterns square. Dawne is a stellar weaver, and her report really gave me pause. Once again, I hadn't struggled with the beat when I wove the sample towels.

These experiences made me realize that along with the familiarity with go-to fibers and setts, I also work on my home looms — I know their capacities and properties, and this informs my approach to projects. The approaches I use in my studio may have to be re-thought, adjusted or tweaked on different looms, with different bodies at the loom.

V.: I made a similar observation when I started weaving, coming from a knitting background.

Knitters are told to knit a sample to figure out their gauge, and to change needle size until they “get gauge” (whatever that really means… do you mean row gauge or stitch gauge, etc.). Starting to weave, I innocently thought that the sett was independent from the weaver and the loom. I discovered how wrong I was when I tried weaving the same cloth on my Macomber and my table loom… Let’s go back to Lisa’s observations.

L.: Okay, the third experience was a pattern project for 8 placemats sett tight in linen. I wanted a firm fabric and sett it accordingly, but I had a bit of an issue getting a square beat (documented in an article [link to pdf] I wrote for Little Looms). I got there with a double beat, but when I thought about the other projects that I hadn't had an issue with, I began to worry.

Am I "brute-force" weaver?

V.: Lisa is indulging in a spot of soul searching here :-)

L.: These experiences brought me back to thoughts I had after watching several episodes from Jane Stafford's online weaving school. I was astonished at her boldly open setts, particularly when I compared them with those of Becky Ashenden of the Vavstuga Swedish weaving school where I had taught on and off for years. 

What I began to contemplate was the impact (pun intended) that both equipment and culture had on sett. In the Swedish tradition, it seems that longevity and durability are priorities and it happens that making firm, more-closely sett cloth works very well with looms that have overhead beaters and no shuttle races (it is tricky to throw a shuttle across a sparse warp on a loom with no shuttle race). Scandinavian weavers usually use a trapeze to beam their warps, and using one (with heavy weights) makes beaming dense warps easier.  Similarly, it is easier to get a firm beat on a dense warp if your loom has an overhead beater.

On the other hand, open setts, light-weight cloth and an emphasis on drape may be better suited to lighter-weight looms. I have woven a few pieces using JST's recommended setts, and I have noticed that using these sett recommendations has quite a few additional  advantages — not just a soft hand and excellent drape, but the warps beam like a dream (very little friction when you sett 18/2 merino at 18 epi), and you use a lot less yarn! I do have to cage my natural impulses re beat, and I find that the weaving is slow for me. Every pick has to be controlled, and I can't blaze away. (Insert recommended sett charts Jane).

Even though my go-to loom is a jack loom, I believe that if I had to give my weaving preference, it would be a firm cloth with a rhythmic beat, and for me that is usually a tighter sett [link to natural beat page]. My preferred cloth might be a different matter. The towels I enjoy weaving tend to be the towels that I enjoy using—I like a durable towel! But the scarves I want to wear are not the ones I particularly like to weave. To get the soft hand and drape I want in a scarf I have to control my beat and be mindful. Annoying.

V.:  Lisa is hinting at the fact that a firm beat comes more easily to her than a very soft one. I think of this idea of an “easy” beat as the “natural” beat (here, "beat" refers to "the force applied to the placement of the pick"). There is hardly anything “natural” about it, by which I mean nothing absolute. It is made of various characteristics of the warp I’m weaving (yarn, sett, structure, etc.), the weft yarn, but also the loom I’m weaving on and how wide is the warp with respect of loom width. Most importantly, it’s natural to me. What is natural to me (a middle-of-the-road weaver) is not what is natural to a life-long rug weaver or to a weaver weaving mostly lace.

The natural beat translates into a range of spacing of the picks (weft sett, or ppi) that is easy to achieve by me, in the situation described above. When I can weave within the natural beat, my hands quickly figure out how hard to pull on the beater to place the pick at the desired sett, and can keep doing it reliably. Why would I weave outside of the natural beat?  Because sometimes what I’m weaving calls for a harder or softer beat: the desired ppi is not achievable without some care given to each pick —i n my hands. For example, the scarves Lisa likes to wear but not weave require a softer beat than what would be natural (to her) on these warps. For those, “beating” is a misnomer; “carefully placing the pick in the shed” is closer to the truth. On the other side of the beat spectrum, some projects require a really hard beat, and it can feel like fighting with the loom at every pick. 

L.: I am in the process of acquiring a Louet loom, and I am very curious to see how my approach to beat changes with this loom. Will it resist my brute force approach? Will it create a more gentle me?

In my current unsettled state, I am happy to think about both JS's approach and Becky's approach and understand that like many things in our weaving lives, there isn't a right or wrong. It is all about getting to know your equipment, your materials, your body, your preferences, and deploying your superpower  — making the cloth that you want!