Hi to all, I am still trying to get comfortable with my old 4-harness countermarch loom and learning how to read a draft. For my first practice piece, I have arranged the warp threads for plain weave (4321,4321, etc.) and tied it up so that treadle #1 raises shafts 1 & 3, #2 raises shaft 2 & 4, #3 raises shafts 1 & 2, and #4 raises shafts 3 & 4. Question: Looking at a draft for 4 harnesses, can I assume the black filled in squares in the tie up box mean those shafts are raised? If so, can I interpret a given treadling order to correspond to my tie up? Or must I change the tie-up to match the draft exactly? Also, can one change the tie-up in the middle of a piece? If so, how would I tie up for a twill? ... Any feedback is welcome. Thanks for your patience!

Comments

Tue, 12/02/2014 - 22:14

ReedGuy

Black boxes sink, white rise. (If the draft was written for a jack loom, it's opposite). In any case you still get the same thing, just look underneath the fabric. To get just plain weave, treadle  1 and 2 are enough, to get a twill from that tie-up you can treadle 1,2,3,4.

 

Wed, 12/03/2014 - 16:05

ReedGuy

You could rearrange the tie-up to do hounds tooth.

Wed, 12/03/2014 - 20:48

kerstinfroberg

Hi ReedGuy - it may be just a cultural thing, again, but: if the tie-up is 1&3, 2&4, 1&2, 3&4, then it would look like this, I believe (ok, so I combined it with threading an suggested treadlings; the tie-up is in the upper right-hand corner):

In the upper (using the two left-hand treadles, perhaps numbered 1&2) portion of the draw-down (binding, strucutre diagram) I can see a plain weave - so far I agree with you.

However, in my corner of the world, the bottom portion would not be called twill - even dubbing it "twill variation" would be stretching it. How do you see this as a twill?

In your next post you say the tieup (I'm assuming the same tieup as we started with?) can be re-arranged for hound's tooth. Again, I am confused (or just lost in translation) - in my corner of the world a hound's tooth pattern is a colour-and-weave effect on a half-and-half (again, in my corner of the world called "batavia") tieup - in this instance it would mean a 2/2 twill with 4-and-4 colour in both warp and weft, like this (bottom left-hand):

So what are the characteristics of "hound's tooth" in your corner of the world?

- the "vernacular" of weaving in different languges and/or cultures can be *so* confusing...

Wed, 12/03/2014 - 22:13

ReedGuy

Yes to what you posted Kerstin, I was posting in haste and not quite awake. :D Originally, there was no mention of color, but the tie-up.  But as to the hounds tooth, I ment pinwheels. In the original, if the plain tied treadles are alternated with the other two you get broken reverse twill. If they move to the middle two treadles then pinwheels, which again depends on color changes in warp and weft.

 

If you play on the broken revere twill theme (below)and introduce color changes you can "immitate" hounds tooth, thus have two patterns using color and two tie-ups, draft 1 and 3.

Thu, 12/18/2014 - 01:30

Lenore

Thanks so much to Reed Guy and KirstenFroberg for your helpful advice - and drafts! Happy Holidays!