I stand near Luca’s weaving bench, watching over his shoulder as he throws the shuttle, beats, changes treadles. He looks at me and smiles, then turns back to his loom. I hear a low grunting sound, a contented rhythm that accompanies his work. I smile as well, knowing that he’s doing fine without my help. Not that long ago, it was a different story. My first encounters with Luca, who lives at the residential home for adults with developmental disabilities where I work, did not include many friendly nods or smiles. Instead, as I sat next to him on the weaving bench, he might frown or give me a little push. His attention span for weaving was limited; after a short while, he would turn to look out the window…
As a formerly serious knitter, I accumulated a sizable stash of knitting yarns, including a whole box of Noro Kureyon balls patiently waiting for their place in the sun. Looking for a structure that would use Kureyon to its best advantage, I perused The Best of Weaver’s: Thick ’n Thin. In diversified plain weave, a thin yarn is used to hold together a much thicker yarn in both warp and weft. Plump Kureyon works perfectly as the thick yarn, especially when combined with 16/2 cottolin or cotton as the thin yarn. To avoid the notoriously sturdy hand of diversified plain weave, I loosened the sett from the expected 8 ends per inch (epi) for Kureyon in plain weave to 5⅓ epi, and I added stripes of plain weave in the…
