Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Doup Leno Setup Part 1 - Doup Threading

The leno/gauze weave studies I've been doing are turning out to be quite a fun adventure.

In doup leno, the warp works in pairs, each pair having a side-to-side stationary ("ground") warp and a side-to-side moving ("doup") warp.  The doup warp can be raised either to the left or to the right of the ground warp, causing the pair to twist back and forth with each other, with the weft holding the twist in place.
The doup warp is threaded through a ("back") harness at the rear of the castle, then it passes under the ground warp (also threaded near the rear), and finally it's threaded through the doup (string) heddle which has been threaded through a harness (the "standard" harness) in the front of the castle.
The doup heddles are the green strings hanging down from the standard heddles.




When the standard and doup harnesses are raised together, the doup warp is raised in the crossed position under the ground warp.

You can see the crossed warps in focus in the background, with the standard and doup heddles out of focus in the foreground.





When the back and doup harnesses are raised, the doup warp is raised in its normal position beside the ground warp.

Here the standard and doup heddles are in focus.  The standard remains lowered, but since the doup is raised, the doup heddles are able to slide up through the standard heddle eye, allowing the doup warp to be raised without a cross.


If these two steps are repeated, raising the doup warp and leaving the ground warp down on every pick, the result is plain gauze weave.









But you can also raise the ground warp alternately to get plain weave in between the twists, forming more complex structures.  This is "fancy gauze", also called leno.

9 comments:

  1. Anxious to see your comments on Part 2 ! I'm not finding much information written on Doup Leno.

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    1. I couldn't find much either; that's why I decided to just go ahead and try it! Part 2 was posted last month. Here's a link: http://fiberartisan.blogspot.com/2014/08/doup-leno-setup-part-2-what-goes-on.html

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  2. Irma Spaargaren's
    http://www.weavezine.com/content/give-it-twist-doup-leno

    and Hella Skowronski's monograph "Doup leno: A quick and simple system for weaving loom-controlled leno"

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    1. Yes, those are good! I worked through Skowronski as my main "textbook" (her tensioning method implies it can be done with fewer jumpers, but I couldn't understand what she meant so I just tensioned each shaft separately). Between books and online I ended up with over 40 resources; when I get a chance I will upload my bibliography to a page here.

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  3. Yeah, I'm on countermarche here and I think all I need to be concerned about is giving slack to the ground warp when the ground shaft is down because the doup always rises.But if the standard shaft rises and grond falls, there is high tension on the ground. If the standard shaft goes down with the ground then no troubles. The doup loop gets pulled through for slack. I'm going to experiment by putting the ground warps onto a supplemental and using a spring tensioned rod for a slacker to see how that behaves. I'll secure the springs to the top castle with button texsolv so tension can be easily adjusted. We'll see. :)

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    1. Oh, yes, countermarche is probably tricky. All the sources I've seen are for rising-shed looms. I'd be interested to hear how your trials work!

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  4. I'm about to embark on some experimentation. I'm on a counterbalance glimÄkra. Did you figure out anything that should change with a sinking shed loom, Bill?

    i was also wondering if texsolv heddles cut or folded in half would work for doups? I have a lot of old ones here that I don't use.

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    1. Hopefully Bill can chime in on the sinking shed question

      The texsolv might just work. They have to hook onto one harness rail, and then be exactly the length to go through the eye of the standard and also carry the doup warp end so the standard and doup heddles can act together to raise it on the crossed shed. Can't hurt to try it!

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  5. Yes, I did a sample piece and posted a project on the Weavolution site. I was pleased with the sample. But in the future I am going to set up a slackener on a treadle. It is otherwise difficult to keep the warp from tensioning the doup too much as the weave takes up. There is a way, I just have to figure out something simple and consistent while weaving. :)

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