Warped Weavers' Favorite Books

Bonnie Kay

* Custom Woven Interiors: Bringing Color & Design Home with Rep Weave. Kelly Marshall, 2012. 130 pages.
As a designer, Marshall takes a contemporary approach to traditional designs. In this beautifully
photographed volume, she provides insight into her own design process and gives tips for translating
inspiration into textiles, designing for Rep weave, and using color and pattern to transform environments. In
this book, Marshall presents 18 project sets of related items for every room in the home. All of the items can
be reproduced from her weave drafts and detailed instructions.

Joyce Lavasseur

* Echo Weave Monograph. Alice Schlein, 2011. 18 pages.

Alice Schlein's original article on echo weave, published in Weaver's magazine issue #32 in 1996, has been
revised, updated, and released as a standalone monograph. See
weaverly.typepad.com/weaverly/2011/11/echo-weave-monograph.html

4 - 8 … Weave! Margaret Coe.

This book is a collection of tutorials using a step-by-step approach to teach e-weave design. The focus is
designing for 4 and 8 shaft looms, but the concepts can be applied to looms with any number of shafts.
Weave design programs come with perfectly good manuals that explain the features of the program and
how they work. Missing from the manuals are practical applications of those features. This book fills that
gap.

* Magical Materials to Weave: Blending Traditional and Innovative Yarns. Lotte Dalgaard. Trafalgar Square
Books, 2012. 80 pages.
This book is for weavers who want to learn innovative techniques that blend traditional and high-tech yarns
on multi-shaft looms into unique material. Lotte Dalgaard worked for over ten years developing inventive
hand-loomed fabric with attractive pleats, folds, frills, and crinkles. The results are fascinating and set a
whole new style of hand-woven fashion. Dalgaard shares her secrets in this straightforward guidebook.

Tablet Woven Accents for Designer Fabrics: Contemporary Uses for Ancient Techniques. Inge Dam, 2013.
140 pages.
Inge Dam's unique handwoven fabrics incorporating tablet woven borders and accent bands are inspired by
ancient textiles discovered in Danish bogs and burial sites. This book describes the five tablet weaving
techniques she uses and explains her process for incorporating tablet weaving into loom-woven fabrics.
Unique border treatments and embellishments are shown and pattern motifs and project ideas are provided.

Weaving with Echo and Iris. Marian Stubenitsky, 2014. 240 pages.
Colorful weave structures can be woven with parallel threading starting from a design line. The structures
shown are shadow, moire, rep, iridescence, four and more color double weave, taquete and samitum for 4 to
32 shafts. See www.weefschool.nl/engels

Weaving Textiles That Shape Themselves. Ann Richards. Crowood Press, 2012. 192 pages.
Weaving with high-twist yarns and contrasting materials can create fabrics with lively textures and elastic
properties. Although these fabrics are flat on the loom, they are transformed by washing: water releases the
energy of the different yarns and the fabrics “organize themselves” into crinkled or pleated textures. This
fascinating book explains the processes and potential of this approach.

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Marion Marzolf

The Art of Weaving. Else Regensteiner. Schiffer Publishing, 3rd edition, 1986. 192 pages.
A handbook for weavers, from beginners to experts. Essential information about looms, yarns, warping a
loom, drafting, basic weaves and pattern weaves are included. Many different weave structures are
covered: double weaves, tapestry techniques, knotted pile and flat-woven rugs, and 2 and 3-dimensional
wall hangings.

Weaver's Study Course: Sourcebook for Ideas and Techniques. Else Regensteiner. Schiffer, 3rd edition 1987.
176 pages.
A book for weavers who are eager to explore new fields but need stimulation and direction. This book
provides much stimulation through examples and directions for 6 main uses of weaving: clothing,
accessories, interiors, interior accessories, toys, and wall hangings.

Marje Mink

Color Seems. Ilma Haskins. Vanguard Press, 1972. 32 pages.

A unique and imaginative approach to the various properties and feelings of color.

Contemporary Textile Art: Scandinavia. Charles Talley. Carmina, 1982. 200 pages.
The author admirably distills the contemporary fiber expressions of the five Scandanavian countries –
Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland – with a perceptive overview of each country's traditions,
distinguished practitioners, and methods of preserving its talents and heritage. Mr. Talley also presents
biographical studies of from 5 to 7 of the leading textile artists of each nation, accompanied by color plates
of works by each artist. The conclusion of each country's section of the book contains a short gallery of
representative art textiles.

New Design in Weaving. Donald Wilcox. Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1970. 128 pages.
After touring much of Scandinavia and interviewing about 1,500 weavers, the author has gathered in this
book different weaving traditions, explaining each style in a clear manner and showing how different artists
may have improved upon the method in their own way. Wilcox presents weaving as an artistic medium and
provides ample photographs of works showing the weaving traditions he describes.

Weaver's Companion. Linda Ligon, Marilyn Murphy (editors). Interweave Press, 2001. 112 pages.
Save your brain for being creative. Let this small, sturdy book keep track of the details. It's all here. Sett
and sleying charts, warp and weft calculation formulas, finishing techniques, fiber factoids, a must-have gray
scale, and much, much more.

Tammy Renner

The Big Book of Weaving. Laila Lundell. Traflagar Square Books, 2008. 269 pages.
Appropriate for beginners, study groups, and experienced weavers alike, this world-renowned reference
book provides all you need to know about handweaving in the Swedish tradition. With hundreds of
templates, charts, and drawings so clear you understand the steps before you read the text, this is the must-
have guide for aspiring weavers.

Kalasfina Vävar (Festive Handwovens). Ann-Kristin Hallgren. Akantus, 2009. 96 pages. In Swedish.
Feast your eyes on the plentiful towels, runners, tablecloths, upholstery fabrics, curtains, blankets, and rugs.
Ranging from traditional to more contemporary, every piece is so tastefully designed you'll be inspired by
every page. Most projects require only 4 shafts, with a handful of 8 shaft patterns thrown in. The threading
and treadling drafts are very clear, so even an English speaker can make very good use of this book.

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 Kathy Scott

* A Handweaver's Pattern Book. Marguerite Porter Davison, 1944. 217 pages.

A modern handbook of our-harness patterns for weavers of all types, whether amateur or professional.
Contains 345 threading directions ranging from simple twills to complicated techniques. Each design is
given many treadlings. These are illustrated with over 1200 weavings.

* The New Key to Weaving: A Textbook of Hand Weaving for the Beginning Weaver. Mary E. Black. MacMillan,
1957. 573 pages.
If the directions are followed carefully, step by step, the interested student will soon become familiar with the
basic weaving structures and prepare himself for the more advanced study of the many variations and
extensions of these weaves.

* On Weaving. Anni Albers. Wesleyan University Press, 1965 or Dover Craft Press, 2003. 204 pages.
This survey of textile fundamentals and methods, written by the foremost textile artist of the 20th century,
covers hand weaving and the loom, fundamental construction and draft notation, modified and composite
weaves, early techniques of thread interlacing, interrelation of fiber and construction, tactile sensibility, and
design.

The Technique of Freeform Design. Nancy M. Searles. Home Mountain Publishing, 1984. 160 pages.
The concept of freeform design involves bending the lines of traditional block weaves so that a 2-
dimensional design of any shape may be created wherever desired in the piece. The look of the traditional
weave (its weave structure) is retained, but the weaver is able to free herself from the vertical and horizontal
lines established by the threading and treadling of traditional block weaves.

* The Techniques of Rug Weaving. Peter Collingwood. Watson-Guptill, 1950. 527pages.

Here is the first book to provide a complete, authoritative, fully illustrated handbook on rug weaving from its
simple beginnings to its highest professional standards. Basic, preliminary chapters familiarize you with
special equipment, yarns, and how to set up a rug loom. The whole of the book is then devoted to a working
coverage of the full scope of the immense range of rug weaving techniques – many almost unknown to even
experienced handweavers.
This book and its successor, Rug Weaving Techniques: Beyond the Basics, can be found in their entirety in
the Online Digital Archive of Documents on Weaving and Related Topics at
www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving.

* A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns. Carol Strickler (editor) . Interweave Press, 1991. 240 pages.
This must-have draft book contains almost 1000 different patterns on more than 25 weave structures.
Introductory chapters provide a thorough understanding of how each structure works

* The Weaving Book: Patterns & Ideas. Helene Bress. Charles Scribner's Sons 1981. 560 pages.
In a single and beautifully illustrated volume, The Weaving Book explores thousands of variations of five of
the basic weaves...plain weave, twill, overshot, monk's belt, and huck. With a concentration on four-harness
weaving, each of the basic weaves is first shown in it's simplest forms and then in both lesser-known and
new variations, providing nearly 3,000 patterns in detailed photo's, drafts, and treadling orders.

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 Betsy Szymanski

* The Best of Weaver's: Twill Thrills. Madelyn van der Hoogt (editor). XRX, 2004. 123 pages.
This book includes the best twill articles from 13 years of Weaver's magazine. Included are more than 30
projects on simple twills, twill blocks, advancing twills, snowflake twills, networked twills, and damasse.
Complete directions are given for weaving glorious scarves, shawls, garments, and table linens on 4 to 16
shaft looms.

* The Complete Book of Drafting for Handweavers. Madelyn van der Hoogt. Shuttlecraft Books, 1993. 136
pages
With this book, you'll not only learn to use drafting tools – warp and weft drawdowns, warp and weft cross
sections, and block profile drafts – you'll also learn how to design with pattern weaves. Under one cover find
the steps for drafting and weaving any profile design in any unit weave.

Designing with Blocks for Handweavers. Doramay Keasbey, 1993. 122 pages.
A step-by-step guide to creating designs on graph paper or special grids and then converting them to drafts
for weaving using keys for selected block weaves. The object is to provide the tools to make it fun and easy
to develop original designs for contemporary textiles.

Pattern Techniques for Handweavers. Doramay Keasbey, 2005. 314 pages

This book is your invitation to the pleasure of pattern weaving. It is for handweavers at all levels of
expertise. Each technical section begins with thorough coverage of basic principles to provide a solid
foundation. Beyond the basics, applications of uncommon facets of weaving are offered to inspire creative
weavers to explore exciting concepts.

* Sixty Scarves for 60 Years. Weaver's Guild of Greater Baltimore, 2009. 131 pages.
To commemorate their 60th anniversary, the guild published a beautiful design collection book. The book
contains full page, color photographs, fabric detail photos and instructions contributed by their members,
many of whom you will recognize. Drafts range from 2 to 24 shafts. There are scarves woven with
handspun yarns, painted warps and popular knitting yarns, as well as those that employ a variety of
differential shrinkage techniques. This collection represents a myriad of tastes as varied as the weavers
themselves. See www.wggb.org/sixty_scarves.html.

* Indicates that the book is in the guild library.

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