The technique I use for weaving supplemental weft shapes into these blankets was something I brought into my work after reading Theo Moorman’s Weaving as an Art Form. Moorman is credited with developing an inlay technique that allowed her to make painterly pictures within a plainweave structure. In the text, she acknowledges that she is credited with originating “Moorman Inlay” as a style of weaving, but humbly notes that she is probably not the first weaver to use this method and is almost incredulous that one single weaver should get credit for a technique so simple. There’s a nice write-up of her technique, along with the draft if you want to try it for yourself, at this site. You can see in the illustrations on the page that Moorman technique uses a plainweave ground cloth like I do, but then uses a secondary set of warp threads to hold the colorful shapes in place. Moorman’s work was the first to give me the idea of using a secondary colorful yarn to '“draw” shapes within the woven groundcloth.
One thing that did not appeal to me about her technique was that it leaves a relatively open weave that always reads as a balanced plainweave. It allows an improvisational, painterly approach to weaving, but does not allow for more concentrated blocks of color the way other supplemental or “pattern thread” weft techniques (like overshot) allow. After some experimentation, I landed on using denim twill pattern for weaving shapes into my blankets. This means that the thread goes under one thread, over three threads in a repeating pattern. It results in a pattern of diagonal lines, dense enough to read as a unified shape and adding dimension to the cloth. The design reads differently if you are facing it to the right, left or straight-on and reads differently up close versus from afar. Of all the woven cloth around us—particularly the cloth we wear—plainweave and denim twill are the most utilitarian and ubiquitous. You’re probably wearing them right now! I really like the idea of taking these absolutely everyday threadings and using them in painterly ways as the foundation for one-of-a-kind art pieces.
If you’re a weaver who wants to start playing around with pictorial weavings, Moorman technique is a lot more forgiving than traditional tapestry and a great place to start. If you’re curious to learn more about her and her work, there’s a Zoom lecture and demo coming up in a few weeks from Redstone Glen Fiber Arts Center. Here’s the link.