Using the Flying Shuttle Technique to Create Text
By Dorothy Clews
This technique is often found in Coptic tapestries
and is used for fine lines in any direction. It looks similar to stem
stitch in embroidery, but is done while the tapestry is being woven.
Use as many supplementary threads as you have
lines, starting and ending the extra threads as necessary. It is best
to use fine yarn, one or possibly two threads depending on the sett of
the warp. Manipulate these extra threads as you
weave. They can meet, join, cross over and
separate.
Start the flying shuttle thread with a half hitch,
leaving a long end at the back of the weaving. Continue weaving as
normal with the usual weft then loop the flying shuttle weft over as
many warps and wefts as is necessary to get the angle you need.
Do not go over too many warps or wefts or the thread is likely to
get caught up, and the integral look of the extra thread is lost. Make
sure that you make the half hitch in the right direction, as in the
diagram, depending on which way the thread is traveling, or the thread
will not lock in place. It should look like part of the structure
of the cloth, not like an added embroidery stitch.
Keying in 'coptic textiles' in a search
engine should turn up manyexamples of the technique used in faces,
complex background patterns like 'key' and 'knot' patterns, and to give
more detail that cannot be woven conventionally. It can be used for any
fine line, vertical, horizontal and any angle in between, scribbly
markings, for any design line sitting on top of a changing background
of tapestry weave and for script-like writing.
Writing can be done sideways or top to bottom. It
is easier to do the writing sideways rather than weave top to bottom.
It is possible to have as many individual flying shuttle threads as you
need working their way up the tapestry.
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