How to Weave a Color Gamp

Try out color interactions between warp and weft in a color gamp.

Weaving a color gamp is a great way to find out how the colors in the warp of your fabric will interact visually with the colors in the weft of your fabric. Most weavers make samples before putting on long warps; why not make the sample a color gamp? You can still test shrinkage and sett in the same way you usually do; but you will also gain a lot of information that you can refer to again and again about color.

Things You'll Need

• Loom
• Yarn in different colors
• Warping board
• Shuttles

Instructions

1. Wind a warp making stripes of as many colors as you have in your stash of a certain yarn. Each stripe should have the same number of ends. For example, for a gamp in 10/2 cotton, wind 42 ends of each color. Make a cross at one end of the warp. Tie the warp off at one-yard intervals. Remove the warp from the warping board and bring it to the loom.

2. Pre-sley the reed by pulling four ends through every fourth dent. Put the back apron rod through the loops and move the cross from the front of the reed to behind it, putting lease sticks in the cross. Wind the warp onto the back beam under tension, putting paper or sticks between layers in the warp. When the front of the warp reaches the reed, cut it. Remove the reed and beater from the loom.

3. Thread the loom to a straight draw by putting one warp end through a heddle on harness 4, then one through a heddle on harness 3, then one on harness 2, and finally one on harness 1. Continue in this manner across the width of the warp. Put the reed and beater back on the loom. Sley the reed to the final sett. (For 10/2 cotton, this might be 24 ends per inch.) Tie the front end of the warp to the apron rod attached to the cloth beam and tighten the tension.

4. Wind a bobbin with the first color in your warp. Weave this color for the same number of shots that you have ends in the warp. For example if you wound 42 ends of color A, weave 42 shots of color A. You can also simply measure the width of color A in the reed and weave that length of weft. Do the same for all the other colors in the warp, in the exact order that you wound the warp.

5. Continue weaving until all the colors in the warp have been woven at least once in the weft. The piece can be square, or if you want it to be a functional blanket or scarf, you can weave each color more than once in the weft to make a rectangular piece. When you reach the end of the warp, cut it behind the heddles. Pull the weaving off the cloth beam and cut it. Knot the fringe at both ends of the weaving.

Tips & Warnings

• You can also test weave structures with a color gamp. Simply treadle the straight draw threading as a twill, or thread the loom to a different structure, such as huck lace.

References

• Weavezine; Color Gamps; Belson and Luhrig; 2009
• "Hands On Dyeing"; Blumenthal and Kreider; 1988