From the Handweaving Academy
Learn to design your own gradients
A free guide to designing gradients, from a weaver who wove over 1,000 swatches to unravel color
Plus a ready-to-weave towel project for 4 or 8 shafts!
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The gap isn't talent
Flowing colors, striking cloth
Maybe you’ve told yourself you don’t have an eye for color. That gradients like these come naturally to some weavers – but not to you.
It’s not a lack of talent. You simply haven’t had the chance to learn how gradients work. There are three factors that make a great gradient, and you’ve probably never had a chance to learn them.
Weaving education teaches execution – how to warp, how to weave a structure correctly. But it doesn’t cover the design half: the reasons that a color choice works. Without that, you’re limited to random stabs in the dark or executing someone else’s plan.
Successful gradients are not an accident, and designing them is not a gift. Once you understand the three factors that make a gradient magical, you’ll be able to ooh and aah over your own.
This free guide walks you through designing your first gradient, then gives you a ready-to-weave towel project to put it into practice.
What you get
How to design a gradient
- A look at what pacing can do: motion, glow, and depth – effects most weavers never think to try
- The three factors that make great gradients – so you know why a gradient works, instead of hoping it does
- What actually makes a gradient smooth – the two things that control it
- A complete towel project for 4 or 8 shafts, ready to weave on day one
- Beautiful color palette that you can use without fiddling
- Downloadable WIF files you can edit with your own weaving software, if you’d rather use your own colors!
You don't need an art background
Most of the weavers we teach have never had formal art training. You don’t need it.
If you’re comfortable weaving a project from someone else’s instructions, and you’ve ever wondered how weavers design their own colors from scratch, this guide is for you.
Thank you!"
Who’s Behind This
Tien Chiu has spent the last ten years obsessing over color – weaving over 1,000 swatches and dyeing thousands of samples to research how color works in weaving.
She’s taught thousands of weavers online and has a knack for making even complex topics feel approachable.
The Handweaving Academy teaches the design half of weaving: the principles behind color, structure, and physical design that most weaving education leaves out. Tien Chiu and Janet Dawson founded the Handweaving Academy in 2022.
Ready to design your own gradients?
Imagine admiring a piece you designed yourself – not from someone else’s pattern – and knowing exactly why every color choice works.
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