Parallel Weave - step-by-step

[Runarsson]

With an article about a fly coming up, I decided to try if I could make descent weaving instructions for it by myself. Good tying results are depending on factors like sitting right, not letting go of the materials, a constantly balanced tension on both materials etc. Sitting totally wrong and having both the vise and the hook in the wrong position (to be able to take pictures), I could smell the fiasko coming behind the corner... and I was right. I will most likely have to seek camera assistance when it comes to the instructions to the magazine. But the result of this "test" of mine was still good enough to not having been a waste of time. Even though it's not "top notch", it's certainly shows enough to be considered useful.

PARALLEL WEAVE

Starting point: The color for the back (here green) tied in on the right side, the
color for the bottom (here orange) tied in on the left side, the tying thread tied
off and finally the vise positioned so the hook eye points straight towards you.
(Pictures show a top view when sitting at the vise.) Now wipe your hands and
take the materials with a firm grip in each hand. You won't let go of them until
the weaving is done and a constant and balanced tension on the both strands
is essential, so you don't want to feel them start slipping through your fingers...

Lay the green strand over the hook to the left side, in front of the orange strand.

With the left hand, lay the orange strand over the green strand and stretch it
towards you. To avoid pulling the green material (that's already on the hook)
forward, angle the green strand slightly backwards and compensate with some
tension also on that one.

Continue in under the hook with your left hand and the orange material and then
stretch it out to the right. Now you will sit with your arms crossed and have the
left on top of your right. Not a comfortable position, but we will straighten it out.

While keeping the orange strand stretched to the right, lift your left arm a bit
to give room for your right hand to come back over the hook. Lay the green
strand over the hook in front of the orange strand. Now we will sit with the
left hand above/behind your right hand and we're ready to untangle our arms.

Pull the left hand towards you and the orange strand will automatically come back
on top of the green strand. Just like on the 3:rd picture, keep the green material
on the hook in place by compensating with tension backwards on the green strand
with your right hand. Key to success through the whole fly: If you do something
to one strand, do the opposite to the other one.

Now, with the green material back on the right side and the orange strand
towards you, the road is clear for the left hand to return to the left side with
the orange strand under the hook. Arms untangled and back where we started.

Let's continue. Over with the green/right...

"Catch" it with the orange, while compensating backwards with the green...

Continue down under the hook with the orange (and tangle up your arms again)...

Back over the hook with your right/the green...

Catch the green with the orange...

Back under with the orange and call the wife to come and wipe the sweat from
your forehead... as you can't let go of the materials and do it yourself. :lol:

To ensure that I would get some pictures which were good enough to use, I
shot a series of 50... one picture every 5 seconds. Here I got a bonus picture
that can be used as an OBS-break. The marked "catch" point shows what a
single second of lost concentration can result in. On the left picture I have a
slightly harder tension on the orange strand than I have on the green, which
makes the orange pull the green down. The right picture shows a crossing with
balanced tension on both strands, leveled with the opposite side's crossing.

But I'm not saying the rest is a good result either. The entire weave has been
done with unbalanced tension on the strands and is twisted on the hook...
because of my position when tying: Instead of sitting with the vise close in
front of me and looking down on the hook, I have been sitting 1,5 meters
away from it, with the hook rotated 90 degrees in the vise... and with a lamp
between my leg I've been lying over the armrest to even see anything of what
I have been doing. This has caused strain on my left arm, which have wanted
to fall down and the left pic clearly shows the difference in tension when I
have handled the orange material. On the right side of the hook, the catch-in
points have been pulled down while on the left side they instead lie very high
on the hook side. Gravity sucks. Sit good and you will FEEL when it's done right.

Enough chattering... let's move on.

Over with the green.

Catch it with the orange...

... and continue in under the hook to the crossed arms position. This was the
last of the 50 picture series but I figure I'd repeated the moves enough for you
to get a hint how to continue. Besides, I have never been this far from the term
'ergonomics' during a tying session and my shoulders didn't really say "move on". :roll:

Though as the result wasn't really a "reference" result, I made a new one that
could give it a more fair picture. Below is what it can look like when you sit with
the hook close to you and can tie relaxed. You will have a better view over the
crossing points and you will get a better "feel" of the tension when handling the
materials. Compare with the result above and believe me when I say it's a fact.


Note also that the infamous "tension difference sensitivity" actually can be used
to your advantage. On this one I have been slightly harder on the orange strand
through the entire body. The result of this has been, like I said at the "bonus
picture", that the orange material has pulled down the crossing points a bit on the
sides (only this time on BOTH sides). This causes the green strand to go a "detour"
(up-across-down) on its way over the hook, which gives the fly a rounded back.

The orange strand on the other hand has more of a plain zig-zag pattern, that just
locks the green without going far up the sides itself... giving it a flatter ventral side.

From the side the difference between the two is very obvious. The green goes all
the way down before turning, while the orange turns around immediately.

The thing that can be tricky with this technique is to finish the body. It's truly one of those moments when you wish you got three hands. The thread has to be tied in again, but you can't let go of the materials. But I do have a couple of tricks there too.
*1 (a trick from an Oliver Edwards video): Holding the both materials in your left hand and the bobbin in your right, grab the loose end with your mouth and hold it in place while you tie it in.
*2 (my own favourite): Holding the two materials with your right hand, just catch the thread end with a couple of free fingers on the same hand and hold it in place while using the bobbin to tie it in. (Why he wants to do it harder by using his mouth is a mystery to me.)
*3: This last one is a technique I came up with while writing the other two. When I finished my "example body" in this step-by-step, I just used a couple of overhand knots to secure the two strands. It was never intended to be a fly, so I didn't care about using thread. But you can do the same and it will make it easy to tie in the thread and secure the material... I have tried: When weaving the body, do it a little longer than you planned and then secure the strands with an overhand knot (or, like on mine above, an overhand knot on each side of the hook... to be sure). Then you can let go of the materials and tie in the thread around the body... at the point where you PLANNED it to finish. After the thread is tied in, you can untie the overhand knot(s), separate those "spare" weave turns back to the thread... and then just tie off the waste ends of the strands as usual. Easy peasy and even gives a better result. When tying the strands off directly after the weave (like ex 1 and 2), the strands will be loose and the last crossing points can move. But when the tie-in point is followed by additional weave, the crossing points just before it will be fixed and will stay both tight and in position while tying in the thread... and they will remain so after separating and tying down the waste ends.

Happy weaving!
/Niclas

[scotfly]

Niclas, stand up and take a bow  :applause :applause :applause
The weaving process is relatively easy, once you get the hang of it. To do it to the standard you have demonstrated here does require a bit (a lot) of practice though! But, and more importantly at the moment, to do a step by step of the process is simply astounding. I have thought of doing a step by step myself, but have shyed away from it because of the difficulty of photographing it. Now I won't bother, I couldn't better, or even match that standard. Very well done and thank you.

[Runarsson]

Thanks... and you're right. It isn't my first time. Most of my public tyings in the past have been different kinds of weaving... with the largest percent represented by this one. The photographing was a nightmare. I wasn't able to take pictures from above, so the vise had to stand in its original position, with the jaws rotated 90 degrees so I could shoot the back of the hook. THEN I could rotate the pictures 90 degrees and make it look like they were taken from above. But to get the right view I had to be 90 degrees myself... and to stay away from the lamps and the camera, I also had to do it from the side of the tying bench. I don't have the best back to begin with and painkillers have become routine after tying shows... but this time I didn't need a 6-8 hour session to want them.  :lol:

/Niclas

[Wildfisher]

excellent

[thewaterbouys]

   I got a dvd of the parallel weave from Uncle Boo tyied by Oliver edwards , i was having a go at tying up corixa patterns. I have got a sea hook  with the weave on it and every now and then i take it down and practice on it by un doing the weave then re doing it. I found it more difficult when tying on 12-14 hooks and trying to keep the lines the same up either side of the hook. But i am getting there your step by step is spot on well done.

                      Henry 

[Malcolm]

That's great, until now the only weave I had , not counting The Old Mill one step shuffle, was running granny knots down the shank. This one looks just as easy.
Thanks