Janet Phillips – March 2026

The aim of the course is to teach weavers the design possibilities of 8-shaft Twill weave structure

The course is suitable for weavers who wish to design their own patterns, rather than following patterns from books.
They must be confident about making a warp and dressing their loom.

There will be three sessions of approximately 2 hours each, one week apart.

• Janet will be available to answer questions via email throughout the course.
• A ‘Padlet’ will be set up for everyone to share photographs of their weaving.
• A recording of each session will be taken and posted on Janet’s website.
• Only paid -up students of the course may watch these videos.

Requirements

• An 8-shaft table loom with a weaving width of at least 16 inches

or an 8 shaft Floor loom with a weaving width of 24”.

• A copy of “Designing Woven Fabrics” by Janet Phillips
• Graph paper
• Pencil
• Eraser
• Ruler
• Calculator
• Two coloured pencils
• Reference will be made to the 4-shaft Twill gamp in my book Designing Woven Fabrics. Having a copy of this would be useful.

YARN REQUIREMENTS:

You will be weaving a finished sample blanket/gamp approximately 14” wide, or 23” wide and approx. 3 yards long.

A suitable warp and weft yarn would be 8/2ne cotton, sett at 24epi/24ppi.

You will need white for the warp, about 12oz, a dark colour for the weft about 11 oz

and a small amount of a third colour.

Warping plans will be sent one month before the course, so that you will have time to prepare your looms.

Session 1

• Learn the weave construction and how I developed the different threading plans on our gamps.
• Hands on practical exercises will be done together.
• Plan how to start weaving our sample gamp.

Session 2

• Learn how to construct different lifting plan and then a tie-up and treadling plan to weave different designs.
• Discuss the variations in weft patterns.
• Hands on practical exercises will be done together
• Echo Twill and Overshot

 Session 3

• Students will come together to discuss outcomes of weaving the sample blanket.
• Exploration further twill structures such as Networked Twill and Crackle and Shadow Twill
• Looking at the Padlet of photographs together.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

• It is important that all participants actually attend the live lessons.
• There will be hands-on worksheets that we will do together so it is important that Janet can actually speak to everyone, answer questions and ensure that everyone understands the design process.
• Therefore: All students must have their videos on during the lessons.
• Before each session Janet will email everyone worksheets that they must print out to work on during the course.
• References will be made to the design ideas in my book Designing Woven Fabrics.
• The Zoom link will be emailed to each participant one hour before each Session