I have been learning about doubleweave pickup thanks to Jennifer Moore's book on doubleweave and an older article that she published in Handwoven magazine. It is definitely a time-consuming process, but I am thrilled by the pictorial possibilities for it. I first experimented with it using the 4-shaft table loom that I already had setup for double weave using left-over 20/2 cotton from my last warp at Penland. I was able to learn the basics from the examples in the book. I then decided that I really wanted to experiment with a strong contrast image. To do so, I took a photo of myself and processed it digitally to create a VERY high contrast version and pixelated it to create a grid for the width of the image I wanted to weave.
For this experiment, I used 10/2 mercerized cotton on an 8-shaft baby mac loom. Using the 8 shaft loom, I was able to further experiment with using a twill-treadling to further emphasize the two layers.
I am very excited by the possibilities of this technique and by my results so far. I still need to cut the resulting piece off of the loom, wet-finish it and find an appropriate way to display it. I will post again with a finished piece.
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