I know it’s unwise, but I’m skipping straight to trying deflected doubleweave on the rigid heddle before I try regular doubleweave. I can’t help it as I’ve fallen head over heels for all the deflected doubleweave scarves I’ve seen. My impression from working on it for a couple of days is that it’s actually not that difficult to work deflected doubleweave on the rigid heddle loom though it is time consuming due to having to pick up the pattern as you go. It’s well worth it though, as the reversible pattern is very satisfying to watch emerging on the loom, and looks awesome!

The second picture is of the reverse side of the cloth.

Using 10-dent heddles, I direct warped (through a single heddle at first), 8 purple, 4 yellow, ““4p, 4y, 5p, 4y, 4p, 4y, 4p, 5y, 4p, 4y”” 8 p strands across. This came out to 4 slots p, 2 slots y, etc… For the groups of 5 strands, I alternated between threading 1 strand through the last slot for purples and threading 3 strands through the last slot for yellow.

In the back heddle (Heddle 1), I left each pair of purple strands in the slot, and threaded 1y through the eye. In the front heddle (Heddle 2), I threaded 1p through the eye and 1p through the corresponding slot. The pair of yellow strands went through the slots. This means that when Heddle 1 is moved, a shed opens in the yellow strands. When Heddle 2 is moved, a shed opens in the purple strands.

Unlike the double cloth described in The Weaver’s Idea Book, the bottom layer is never woven. All the weaving takes place on the equivalent of the top layer, with alternation every 4 picks (I’ll call each group of 4 picks a block) as to which color is woven. Each block starts by raising the heddle that corresponds to the color of the block (i.e. Heddle 1 for yellow and Heddle 2 for purple). This opens the shed for that color. Patterning is set by sliding the pickup stick through the open shed and going over or under the groups of contrast threads according to the draft. 1 pick is woven. That same heddle is then lowered and the pickup stick again slides through the shed going over or under the groups of contrasting threads according to the pattern. These two steps are repeated- for a total of 4 picks- and then the next color block is worked in the same way.

Detailed instructions for the pattern shown in the pictures. Link to the draft I used.

I do wish I’d used thinner yarn. I was worried that fingering weight yarn would end up looking gappy at 10 epi, but this scarf is a little unwieldy because of its weight. I was also a bit heavy handed with beating the yarn. I could have loosened up my weaving a bit and the scarf would have been lighter as a result.