In my previous posts I talk about learning how to make double weave designs in Photoshop Elements. Once I was comfortable with this, and had woven a few samples, I decided that I wanted to weave some silk scarves. But I wanted those scarves to feel soft and drapey and, well, silky. Some of my samples were the opposite of this – the fabric was quite thick and stiff. The answer – sampling!

I used 30/2 silk for my sett samples, and started off at 40epi, or 20epi per layer, which to me felt like an open sett for this weight of silk. I wove a sample, cut it off and washed and pressed it. It felt quite heavy, so I re-sleyed the reed and went down to 36epi (18epi per layer). This felt much better, but I went even further with my next sample, down to 30epi (15epi per layer). I really liked the finished fabric at this sett, and went on to weave a couple of scarves (aka ‘full sized samples’).

It became obvious that acceptable sett was very much related to the size of the areas of plain weave in each of the designs. Where there were larger areas, at a sett of 30epi the silk moved around slightly as it went around the cloth beam, and, although it was fine when washed, in the end I decided that 36epi gave a slightly more stable end fabric.

What is certainly true is that the small size of many of the repeating designs enabled a stable fabric to be made at a relatively low sett for the weight of the silk used.