Weaving Terminology
A short explanation of the words you'll hear in your first few sessions on a loom. It’s long so I’ve grouped them by what part of the process they belong to.
The loom itself
Loom — The frame that holds the warp threads under tension so the weft can be woven through them. Ranges from a small handheld frame to a full floor loom with foot pedals. Tapestry loom, rug loom, shaft loom, rigid heddle loom all hold warp in place but they vary dramatically to produce complex or simple weave structures and size.
Warp — The set of threads stretched lengthwise on the loom before weaving begins. These stay fixed in place and form the structural backbone of the cloth.
Weft — The thread woven horizontally over and under the warp, carried by the shuttle. This is the thread that builds the fabric, row by row.
Heddle — A cord or wire with an eye in the centre, through which a single warp thread is threaded. Raising or lowering heddles is what separates the warp to let the shuttle through.
Rigid heddle — On a rigid heddle loom, the heddle and the reed are combined into a single rigid frame with alternating slots and holes. Lifting or lowering this one frame does the job that a full floor loom does with separate shafts and a reed.
Shafts (AKA harnesses) — Frames that hold groups of heddles together on a multi-shaft loom. Raising and lowering different combinations of shafts creates different weave structures. A 4-shaft loom can weave patterns a 2-shaft loom can't.
Reed — A comb-like piece, usually metal, mounted in the beater. Warp threads pass through the gaps (called dents) both to keep them evenly spaced and to beat the weft into place.
Shuttle — The tool that carries the weft thread across the loom, passed through the open shed by hand or on a track. There are lots of different shuttles to carry different types of yarn on. Boat shuttle, stick shuttle, ski shuttle to name a few.
Beater — The moving frame that holds the reed and is swung forward to pack, or 'beat,' each new row of weft firmly against the cloth already woven.
Pawl and ratchet — A small mechanism on the warp and cloth beams that stops them from unwinding under tension. The ratchet is the toothed wheel; the pawl is the catch that locks into it, one tooth at a time, so you can advance the warp without it springing back.
Treadle — A foot pedal on a floor loom, connected to the shafts. Pressing a treadle raises or lowers a chosen set of shafts to open the shed, freeing the hands to manage the shuttle.
Apron and apron rod — The apron is a strip of fabric or cord at each end of the loom that connects the warp to the front and back beams. The apron rod is what the warp is tied onto before winding on.
The weaving process
Warping — The process of measuring, cutting, and setting up the warp ends on the loom before any weaving begins. Often the slowest and most exacting part of the whole process.
Shed — The triangular gap that opens between raised and lowered warp threads, formed each time the heddles move. The shuttle passes through the shed to lay in each new row of weft.
Sley — To thread the warp through the reed, one or more ends per dent, according to the pattern.
Dent — A single gap in the reed. The number of dents per 10cm (or 1cm) determines how closely spaced the warp ends are.
Sett — The number of warp ends set per centimetre across the whole warp. Sett is chosen based on the yarn thickness and the kind of cloth being woven. Tighter for a firm fabric or more open for drapey cloth.
Pick — A single pass of the weft yarn through the shed, from one side of the loom to the other. Cloth is often described by its 'picks per cm' - a measure of how densely the weft is packed.
Beat — The act of pushing each new pick firmly into place against the woven cloth, using the reed. How hard and how consistently you beat affects the density and drape of the finished fabric.
Tension — How tightly the warp is held on the loom. Even tension across the whole warp is one of the most important things to get right — uneven tension shows up as puckering or unevenness in the finished cloth.
Hemstitch — A hand-stitched finishing technique, worked along the raw edge of a piece before it comes off the loom, that groups warp threads together to stop the weave from unravelling.
Bobbin — A small spool that holds weft yarn, usually loaded into a shuttle.
Materials and structure
Ends — Individual warp threads, counted one by one (e.g. 'a warp of 200 ends').
Ply — The number of individual strands twisted together to make a yarn (2-ply, 4-ply, and so on). This is more knitting terminology, as weavers we work with a commercialised weight per length concept. eg 8/4 cotton.
Tabby (but we call it plain weave) — The most basic weave structure, where the weft passes over one warp end and under the next, alternating every row. The foundation most other structures are built from or combined with.
Draft — A written or charted plan showing how the warp is threaded through the heddles and which shafts to raise for each pick, used to weave a specific pattern.
Weaving is such an old craft, and while the terminology is long, it reflects that long history of a working vocabulary. This isn't exhaustive, but it covers what you'll hear and use in a Learn to Weave Workshop and the follow-on course.
