Cool Cross

I've been sharing on Facebook a piece of weaving that I've been experimenting with this week.  The technique is called Cool Cross and involves making a 3D fabric out of a flat piece of weaving.  The finished weave results in a fabric that opens out and sits at right angles to itself.

Hopefully you can see that the two halves of the cloth loop through each other across the middle.

On the loom it looks like this

It looks really complicated but effectively you are weaving to get two separate pieces with two selvedges each by going underneath the warps.  You can see this in the photo above.  When you set up the warp you can leave a couple of empty dents in the reed to delineate the sections and make life easier when you take the shuttle through.  It is very easy to snag the wrong warps.  Just as I have lifted up the left hand purply strip I can also lift the pink side, they both sit free of the fabric below.

I will get round to trying this again and have a hankering to use wintery colours to make a sparkly mobile.  You could do this on any kind of loom.