Woven rose

What it is

Also called a woven wheel or a spider web rose: an odd number of straight spokes worked from a centre point, then thread woven over and under them in a spiral until the spokes disappear. The weaving needle comes up once in the centre and goes down once at the rim, and in between it stays on top of the cloth — the rounds pile up on the spokes rather than being pulled into the fabric, which is what lifts the rose clear of it.

How to work it

1. Work an ODD number of spokes out from a single centre point — five is the standard, seven for a larger rose.
2. Come up in the middle of the wheel, between two spokes.
3. Weave over one spoke and under the next, going round and round the same way.
4. Do not pierce the fabric while weaving. The thread only passes over and under the spokes.
5. Pull the first two rounds snug enough to close the centre, then ease off — the outer rounds should lie on the spokes rather than being drawn down onto them.
6. Keep going until the spokes are covered and the outer round is soft and full.
7. Take the needle down just under the outer edge of the rose and finish on the back.

What it is good for

• Roses, obviously — but also peonies, ranunculus and anything meant to look full.
• A focal point: it stands higher than everything around it, so use it sparingly.
• Beginners who think they cannot do flowers. It is far easier than it looks.

What goes wrong

• An even number of spokes. The over/under pattern then repeats on the next round instead of alternating, so some spokes collect all the thread and others stay bare.
• Weaving the whole rose at one tension. Held tight throughout it packs into a flat mat and drags the spokes out of their even spacing; left slack throughout it goes floppy and the spokes show through.
• Stopping too early — an unfinished rose looks like a wheel because it still is one.
• Closing a hoop over a finished one, or ironing it. It is raised, and raised does not survive either.

By the numbers

Spokes

5odd, or the weave stops alternating

Strands

6full floss is what makes the rounds fold

Stitches in this example

38counted from the drawing above, not estimated

Floss it would take

48 cmworking thread to cut, at 6 strands

The studio lays five spokes and spirals the weave over them, and the over/under is real in both views: the 3D preview alternates it in HEIGHT, so you get the same ribbon folds you get in your hand, and the Stitched view lays the spoke back down on top of the weave wherever the weave passes beneath it. That alternation is registered to the spoke angles themselves — where the thread should go under a spoke it really drops below it, by the full thickness of the two threads rather than by a hair, and the spoke rides up over the top exactly as a real warp is lifted by the weaving. A wave that merely alternates five times a round is not the same thing: it leaves the thread mid-transition at every spoke, which is a spiral lying on five lines. It defaults to six strands because that is what makes the rounds fold. The pattern costs it as five spokes that pierce the fabric plus a spiral that plunges only at its two ends.

Watch it worked

Hand-picked from YouTube. Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play.