loom, I never would have come up with the notion of
doublewidth weaving. I salute the weaver who fi gured out
how to push past the limitation of a loom’s width.
Whoever came up with the idea of the fl oating selvedge also
belongs in my Weaving Hall of Fame. Like many brilliant
ideas, the concept is simple yet so eff ective. As a beginning
weaver, I thought I was doing something wrong when the
selvedge warp ends didn’t catch. I’m reserving a place for the
person who fi gured out how to keep our selvedges tidy.
I started with this initial selection of innovators out of
gratitude. Without their ingenuity, I might still be tediously
picking my way over and under across each row. I might
actually hate weaving. Each new way of manipulating thread
formed the foundation of our modern weaving world. It is on
this foundation built by those nameless ancestral fi ber
pioneers that our modern trailblazers have continued pushing
the “weaving envelope.”MODERN ALLSTARS
Our modern nominees are no longer nameless weavers. Th ey
are part of our weaving infrastructure and have become
household names for many of us. A weaving library would not
be complete without their books.
It’s time we honored Marguerite Porter Davison with a place
in the Weaving Hall of Fame. Davison self-published A Hand-
weaver’s Pattern Book in 1944. To weavers, it is also known as theLAST YEAR, WHEN MY HUSBAND WAS INDUCTED into
the New Jersey Soft ball Hall of Fame, I started thinking
about the Hall of Fame as a concept. Granting membership
is a way to honor the elite few, the extraordinary athletes,
musicians, and other professionals whose achievements are
remarkable. As I thought more about this, I asked myself,
why not open the doors of a Hall of Fame for those achieve-
ments that are oft en overlooked? My thoughts immediately
turned to weaving. How about a Weaving Hall of Fame?
Weaving is such an ancient, timeless craft that selecting
nominees needs a diff erent approach. Some of our greatest
textile achievers are anonymous, lost in the thousands of
years of weaving that stretch back beyond recorded history.
We can’t research their biographies.
As the self-appointed Director of the Weaving Hall of
Fame, I nominate those innovators who pushed weaving past
the status quo of their time. Back in prehistory, there must
have been a fi rst someone who saw beyond the over and
under of plain weave. It may have even been a radical idea to
go over and under multiple warp ends for each pick.THE GREAT UNKNOWNS
My fi rst nominee is the unknown person who gave us twill. If
I had been a weaver in the dusty past, would I have thought of
weaving twill? Probably not. Heck, I’m sure I wouldn’t even
have thought up a multishaft loom. Speaking of, while there
have been many versions of looms over the ages, I want to
thank, and nominate, the unknown person who gave us the
multishaft loom. A four-shaft loom is modest by today’s
standards, but our early New Stone Age weaving ancestors
would have been awestruck by this invention.
Next up is the weaver who invented doublewidth weaving.
When I take my folded 30-inch piece of weaving off the loom
and open it to its full 60-inch width, it always feels as if a
weaving miracle has occurred. Even aft er a lifetime at the
SHERRIE AMADA MILLER
MARKHI
LLIt’s time we honored Marguerite
Porter Davison with a place in
the Weaving Hall of Fame.THE WEAVING
HALL OF
FAME
14 | HANDWOVEN http://www.interweave.com