Double Weave Part I: What the shuttle is doing

Though the magic of stop-action photography, here is an explanation of how double-weave works to create a folded piece of double wide, plain weave fabric.

Imagine, if you will, a cross-section of your warp. Here are 10 threads for shafts 1 and 2:

And a second set of threads, again 10, for shafts 3 and 4:

For the sake of clarity, we will make our left the “Fold-side,” and our right the “Selvedge-side”:

In order to weave the cloth, we will travel from the middle of the cloth, and work in tabby from the fold side to the selvedge side.

Because we don’t want to weave a tube, we need to follow our cloth on this layer, back to the middle (fold side) of the cloth:

Then we weave the other layer from the fold to the selvedge:

And back (selvedge to fold):

That is what the shuttle is doing: weaving two picks of each layer, from the fold, to the selvedge, and back. You can, of course, start from the selvedge end, and work toward the middle. Throw one shot of the lower layer:

Then one shot of the upper layer:

The return shot of the upper layer (so as to avoid making a tube!):

And the return shot of the lower layer: