Sett Explained, Sort Of
By: Melissa Ludden Hankens /March 2010
Every Tuesday evening you can find me at Elissa’s Creative Warehouse in Needham, Massachusetts. I met Elissa last year at The National NeedleArts Association’s summer conference in Columbus, Ohio and found her to be enthusiastic about introducing weaving to her shop. After a bit of discussion, we decided that the Cricket Loom would be a perfect way for her to start.
One thing led to another, and I found myself teaching an introductory rigid heddle class at Lisa’s shop to a group of lovely gals I am now happy to call friends. Their enthusiasm for weaving is infectious, and we now meet every Tuesday night to continue to develop our skills together. Often we will have new weavers join us, and there is always an amazing show-and-tell and lively conversation. The Cricket is so portable it makes getting together like this a piece of cake.
One of the more frequent topics of conversation is what dent rigid heddle to use with a given weight of yarn. With weaving yarns recommended setts for both tabby and twill weaving are quite easy to find. In particular, I like Halcyon Yarn’s website. Halcyon also sells what’s called "Yarn Store in a Box" (http://halcyonyarn.com/yarn.html). This includes over 50 sample cards that allow you to touch the yarn and see the actual colors in person. I frequently use mine to plan projects. Additionally, many resources list a sett chart for standard weaving yarns, p. 37 of The Weaver’s Companion, for example.
What tends to not be available online is recommended sett information for knitting yarns. I have heard many rigid heddlers saying they initially got into weaving as a way to put a dent in their knitting yarn stash. If you are working with an existing stash of yarn, how do you know what dent rigid heddle, or sett (the number of warp ends per inch), to use when weaving?
While it may seem cut and dried — wraps per inch divided by two equals recommended sett — this is merely a starting point. And here is where I hop up on the sampling soapbox. The best way to determine what sett is appropriate for your particular project is to sample. This month, I did a bit of sampling for you.
When I first started rigid heddle weaving, I was told a general rule of thumb for sett based on yarn weights. Worsted weight yarn for the 8-dent rigid heddle, sport weight yarn for the 10-dent rigid heddle, and lace weight yarn for the 12-dent rigid heddle. This seems to make sense until you actually start working with the yarns. Go to your local yarn shop, grab five different worsted weight yarns, and you’ll see what I mean. My experience is that there is a vast variation in size. In particular I’ve found that lace weight yarns are often more appropriate for the finer sett achieved through multi-heddle weaving.
So where to start? The first thing to consider is what you want your finished piece to look and feel like. If you are looking for a warp-faced or warp-dominant fabric, you will want to sett your piece with a greater number of ends per inch than recommended. If you are looking for a weft-faced or weft-dominant fabric, you will want to sett your piece more loosely. Betty Linn Davenport has a great diagram on p. 31 of Hands On Rigid Heddle Weaving that shows the same warp and weft being used in a variety of setts.