I Learn (a Little) about Crackle

Some five years later, or, in other words, about two years ago, crackle floated back into my head. I was still haunted by that multi-colored tabby-less crackle. But how to get started?

The first thing I learned is that it is not so easy to learn about crackle. I looked through my books. I went through every issue of my weaving magazines: Handwoven, Weaver's (no longer published, sob). Shuttle Spindle and Dyepot, Vav Magazine (now published in English), and The Journal for Weavers, Spinners and Dyers (British). Yes, I do subscribe to a lot of weaving magazines.... The main things I learned is that not much has been written about crackle and that crackle did not seem to be a particularly popular weave structure, at least in the contemporary weaving world.

Then I discovered Zielinski's Master Weaver Series. In Volume 8 he talks about contemporary approaches to crackle. But I found that a little beyond me. And then I found Mary Snyder's monograph, The Crackle Weave. And that was way beyond me. Light years beyond me. At least back then.

To be continued. But first, let me share a picture of one of my crackle scarves. This is one of my first crackle samples/scarves.



The warp is 60/2 silk. The pattern weft is 30/2 silk and the tabby weft is 60/2 silk. I dyed the yarns using Lanaset dyes. The threading is a 6 shaft crackle.

The weaving is essentially a 3-shuttle weave. That is, though I am using more than 3 different yarns throughout, at any one time, only 3 shuttles are in play. More about weaving with multiple shuttles next time. At least that is the current plan............