Huck Lace

Soon after I started weaving I discovered a very nice weave structure known as ‘Huck Lace’. It is primarily a plain-weave cloth with either warp floats, weft floats, or a combination of both. Floats are made when the warp or weft is not woven in the plain-weave fashion, but lays on top or under the cloth for 3 or 5 threads depending on the type of huck lace you are weaving. In the diagram below shows the areas of ‘plain-weave’ and areas where either the warp and weft threads are not caught in the plain-weave structure. This is a five-thread huck meaning the warp or weft will skip over or under five threads before it will return into the plain-weave structure. In the areas where there are blocks of warp floats next to blocks of weft floats, the fabric is very loosely woven and there will be open lacy places in the cloth. This type of lacy area is much less obvious in three-thread huck patterns.

Huck lace fabric can be used for several things. I have woven curtains for my kitchen and my daughter’s room. I have a red table cloth woven in huck lace that gets used during the holidays. A special project happened when one of my step-daughters had her first child. I wove huck lace fabric and her mother made a christening gown for the baby. Soon I would like to weave baby blankets using cotton and the huck lace patterns I have been developing.

I also weave kitchen towels from 8/2 cotton using huck lace patterns. The towels are very absorbent and wash up nicely. I get a kick out of watching them slurp up the water left on the ‘top’ of things after the dishwasher has stopped. Take a look at the huck lace towels I have on my web site.