Denting and Cramming

As I mentioned before, I am participating in Jane Stafford's online guild. JST Guild  This is the 3rd year that she is making videos and projects to weave.  Even as an experienced weaver, I am learning a lot and getting inspired to try new things.

This year Jane is talking about various denting techniques, cramming or using a very high sett and denting or spreading the sett out.  By using these techniques she is creating some interesting fabrics.

While weaving, the fabric looks like it will not be usable due to the very open sett; however, by selective use of crammed denting, the fabric is held together.

Here is a picture of it off the loom with a black background.  You can see the shifting of the threads where it went over the beam.  These will adjust themselves in the finishing wash.


After wet finishing, the cloth changes quite a bit and becomes stable.  Because this is wool, I can control how much fulling happens when I wash it.

After I wove the first scarf I changed the weft to a thick silk and linen.  I wove 2" segments with the silk/linen and 2" segments with the thin wool.












For the third scarf I cut the first two off and changed the denting.  I re-sleyed using the skip denting technique.  Threading 12 ends then skipping 6 dents.










I used the same wool to weave the weft and the same spacing which leaves large holes in the fabric.

 The scarves are light weight, airy and beautiful.  I used a wool purchased from WEBS a few years ago.  It was a mill end and I don't remember the exact info on it.  All I know is that it is very thin.  I estimated a tabby sett to be about 30 EPI.