When it comes to weaving patterns, there really is no limit to what you can create. Just look at any weaving pattern book and you will find so many different interesting patterns to play with!
Previously we have talked about overshot and waffle weave, so make sure to check those out too!
As far as today goes, we are talking about huck lace (huck weave.)
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What is huck lace
Huck lace (also called huckaback or just huck) is a loom-controlled lace pattern that creates bundles within the fabric using floats.
First, what is “loom-controlled lace”?
This is a lace that is created through the use of heddles on your loom as opposed to manual manipulation of the yarn with your hands or tools. These types of lace usually require a bit more set-up with a more complicated draft, but they will weave up faster than hand-manipulated laces because the loom is doing the work for you. Yay!
If you are interested in other types of lace that are hand-manipulated (brooks bouquet, Spanish lace, and leno) then make sure to check out this post here! These types of laces are great for any type of loom including a rigid heddle or frame loom.
The main characteristics of huck lace are its double vertical floats on the front and double horizontal floats on the back of the weaving. Once off the loom, these floats create compressed sections of your weaving to make it look like your warp and weft and bending!
One thing to keep in mind is that while you are weaving is that even though the vertical floats are on the front and the horizontal floats are on the back, once your weaving is off the loom, you get to choose which is the front and the back! So if you have a preference for the horizontal floats, there is nothing saying that you can not use that as the primary side.
When it comes down to it, the weaving is your own and you get to make the rules.
Weaving draft
As I mentioned previously, the draft for huck lace is going to be a bit more complicated than your typical straight or point draft that you would find for plain weave or different types of twills. That being said, as long as your pay attention while you are warping your loom, you should not have any issues.
If you are not sure how to read a weaving draft then make sure to check out this post first.
So let’s take a look at the draft for huck lace:
The first thing to note is that huck lace is easily woven on a 4-shaft loom with 4 treadles. I also usually like to set up 2 extra treadles if they are available for plain weave. This is helpful for setting up your header or for any breaks in your weaving that you may want between areas of lace.
For this pattern though, it is unnecessary! If you look at the draft, you can see that alternating treadling 1 and 2 will get us the plain weave that we are looking for without setting up anything extra.
The threading for huck lace follows a pattern of 1,3,1,3,1,2,4,2,4,2 repeat. This treadling pattern has 10 total steps which means that you will probably want to have an EPI that is divisible by 10 in order to make sure that you get your full pattern.
Another important thing to note is that when you are weaving a huck pattern you will want to use floating selvedges in order to weave easier and cleaner. You can see them in the image above and below.
You can learn more about floating selvedges including how to set them up, how to use them, and how to create them when you forgot… here!
Huck lace variations
Like most weaving patterns there are different variations that you can do to change it up without really doing any more work.
The original draft for this pattern that I followed came from The Handweaver’s Pattern Directory (review in link) and one of my favorite things about this weaving draft book is that it shows you all of the different variations you can do while still using the same threading, tie-up, and treadling (or just slight, simple variations of each).
The simplest variation is always to change up the weft as you go to create stripes of different thicknesses. You can also warp your loom with different colors to create vertical stripes as well. Both of these options are incredibly simple, but can still create dynamic and interesting variations for this already impressive-looking weaving structure.
If your loom has up to 6 treadles that you can use, then you can actually vary your huck weaving even more! This allows you to create daintier areas of lace with bundles in different areas of the fabric.
Like most weaving patterns, huck is not just a single style. You can play around with it and create drastically different weavings with the same threading and tie-ups!
What huck lace is good for
Traditionally huck has been used often for towels or other fabrics that need to be absorbent.
Depending on the type of fiber that you use (most commonly cotton or linen yarns), this can be a really great option for using this pattern. In fact, the actual definition for huckaback is a strong linen or cotton fabric with a rough surface, used for toweling. (“Huckaback.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/huckaback. Accessed 8 Mar. 2023.)
That being said, huck lace can also be a fun option for more delicate projects like scarves or shawls, or for decorative projects like pillows. Despite the lace name, it really is quite durable since it has a base of plain weave. This creates a stable fabric even with the small floats on its surface.
Once your weaving is off the loom it will relax a bit and really lean into the “cinched” characteristic created by the floats. This pattern is impressive on the loom, but even more impressive off of it! The image above shows how this pattern really comes alive once it is no longer under tension.
Keep all of this in mind when you are planning your project since it changes so much after it is off the loom.
If you try it out then let me know! I would love to hear about what you create with huck lace!
