Weaving Using Pick Up Sticks

How to use a pick up stick.

Weaving using pick up sticks.

If you are totally new to weaving with the pick up stick on the rigid heddle loom check out my latest knitty column. I give a very basic primer on how it works and discuss how to weave warp floats. You start with pick up control. Then you use a pick up stick to pick up only those.

Incorporate one pick up stick and you can weave on 3 shafts. I can use these same sticks whether my project is narrow or full loom width. Once charged you can slide the stick to the back of the loom and continue to weave plain weave. Pick up sticks can be used to create simple patterns for all over texture or to create complex designs that may travel or cover only part of the weaving surface.

When using a. Up and pick up stick up and pick up stick indicates the heddle should be in the up position and then the pick up stick is slid to the back of the heddle. Your pick up sticks need to be longer than the width of your project or they won t hold the picked up threads. You can do more than tabby plain weave with a rigid heddle.

Then you pick up the configuration you want behind the heddle. The action imparted on the yarn is both the up which lifts the yarns threaded in a hole and the pick up stick which lifts the picked up slotted threads on the stick. In this case i m picking 1 down 1 up. In first fall edition of knitty i ll address weft floats.

For my 24 rigid heddle loom i use 24 pick up sticks. That s done by pushing your heddle into the down position and inserting a warp separator such as a stick paper cardboard or anything into the shed created behind the heddle so that you can see only all the slot threads. This is called charging the pick up stick.