Rigid Heddle Table Runner

I’ve seen many weavers start with a rigid heddle loom because it seems simple. But even a simple loom has lots of design potential. In this project I was inspired by a page in Jane Patrick’s The Weaver’s Idea Book: Creative Cloth on a Rigid Heddle Loom. The idea was to combine log cabin with weft-float pickup. I warped the loom with 8/4 cotton in a 12.5 epi heddle.

Then I wove a plain weave sample to show the log cabin pattern:

I’ve added Charcoal borders to the Peacock and Pale Limette log cabin. Once I had that going, it was time to try out the pickup. I wove the hems of the runner in 16/2 Pale Limette to reduce the bulk once they were turned and sewn.

The pickup stick was set by picking up every second slot thread with the heddle in the down position. For the runner I wove this sequence:

1. Heddle up
2. Heddle neutral, pickup stick on its side
3. Heddle up
4. Heddle down

At the same time I maintained the log cabin colour sequence. This meant that some of the pickup texture was woven in the charcoal borders.

After finishing the runner I wondered what it would look like if I kept the charcoal borders in plain weave (both warp and weft). So the pickup stick was set to pick up all but the first and third slot thread in each log cabin stripe (the ones not picked up end up being the weft floats). The weaving sequence became:

1. Heddle up (charcoal)
2. Heddle down (charcoal)
3. Heddle up (Limette)
4. Pickup stick (Peacock)
5. Heddle up (Limette)
6. Heddle down (Peacock)
7. Repeat 3-6

Then repeat the whole sequence switching the Limette and Peacock.

The resulting washcloth:

I like that this fabric seems more regular than the table runner, but both are nice.

After washing and hemming, I have a nice set: