Selvage Lessons

I wove a little scarf to test a new-to-me loom (on loan from my weaving guild).



The scarf turned out to be a lesson in selvages. Sometimes the selvage would be beautifully straight and even. Sometimes the selvage would be terribly loose and uneven!














Here is an example of the uneven section. I discovered that I was making my weft angle too big, and the extra yarn was ending up at the selvage.















Here is a section with a nice, even selvage. The weft was only about an inch above the edge of the fabric.














And this is where the lesson learned with my scarf became useful! This is a very narrow piece of double weave fabric (a learning sample, of course!). It's made by passing the shuttle through the warp in a "c" shape.

The open ends do well with a low weft angle...it keeps the selvages looking nice. But the center needs the extra yarn so it doesn't draw in and create a pucker in the fabric.

Look at the top center of this piece. See how close the dark blue lines are to each other? I was using the same weft angle for all shots.

Look at the middle of the piece. The blue lines are further apart...and no pucker in the fabric. The weft angles were different...small on the open edges, large on the closed edge. When the fabric came off the loom the closed edge was loose in the area where I used different angles, but after wet finishing the looseness tightened perfectly!