Term of the Week: Even-weave
Welcome to this week’s Term of the Week, where we hop into a basic stitching term that’s good for everyone to know!
Evenweave (also even-weave or even weave) is a type of fabric where the warp (up and down) and the weft (left to right) threads of the fabric are equal distances apart, forming perfect squares. This fabric can be of many types, but for needlework, the two most common types are linen and aida. There is also a mixture of the two that is just called evenweave.
Most needlework fabrics are some type of evenweave, including the most popular Aida Cloth. All Aida is evenweave fabric, but not all evenweave fabrics are aida cloth. Some advanced stitchers prefer using plain evenweave or linen versus aida fabric.
What is the difference? Evenweave differs from aida in the count (or squares) of the fabric. Most evenweave fabrics are larger counts (28 or 32 ct. versus Aida’s 14 or 18 ct.) because the design of the fabric allows stitchers to skip a hole when doing the diagonal half stitch that forms part of the full cross-stitch. This is called stitching “over 2”.
This makes evenweave better for fractional stitches and also gives the stitcher more control over the size of the project. A 28 ct. evenweave project stitched “over 2” will be the same size as a 14 ct. aida project stitched “over 1”. So a stitcher using evenweave can make the project larger or smaller without making any changes to the chart.
A close up view of the threads that make up evenweave fabrics (also shows warp and weft)
——————————————————————————
“Term of the Week” is a weekly blog post highlighting a new word or phrase commonly used among cross-stitchers but not found in an ordinary dictionary. These posts are to help explain the words’ meanings in context and provide a resource for anyone wondering what a term like “frogging” means. Check back every Thursday!
By the way – to keep up on Little Thread Crafts stitching news and get pictures, updates, and more that don’t appear on the blog until much later, follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram! I would greatly appreciate it!