"weft-woven (or dog-tooth)"

Submitted by kerstinfroberg on Sat, 05/02/2015 - 19:05

Help!

Today someone aske me about "the Falkirk tartan".

After some googling I found that the cloth itself is fairly straight-forward (a 2/2 broken-reversed twill, broken after 8 ends; 8/8 ends/picks in two colours), but several webpages use the same sentence to describe it:

" Although small, it is of a type known as weft-woven (or dog-tooth) check in woollen fabric. It has a simple check design of natural light and dark wool."

So, please: has anybody heard of "weft-woven"? (I think I know abour dog-tooth, exccept I think that is about a colour-and-weave pattern, a 2/2 straight twill with a 4/4 colour distribution)

Here is a pic of the original Falkirk tartan: (pic comes from the National museum of Scotland)

"... known as weft-woven..." ???

Comments

Submitted by Sara von Tresckow on Sat, 05/02/2015 - 21:15

Permalink

This sounds truly like one of those internet sentences that was formulated by someone with historical knowledge but limited understanding of textiles. Houndstsooth is a color and weave effect and can be generated by the broken twill as well as a straight one.

The "weft-woven" is nothing I've ever seen for a 2/2 twill. The fabric certainly is not weft faced. It might refer to woven on a loom, as weft, rather than twined or twisted - sprang or nalbinding.

Submitted by laurafry on Sat, 05/02/2015 - 22:15

Permalink

I agree with Sara. I have seen textiles in museums with labels that don't make any sense whatsoever in weaving terms. Whoever labelled them was probably just trying to define them the best way they knew how with little understanding of the craft or terminology. Or else it was Google translate, and we all know how well that goes! Cheers Laura
Group Audience
Textile Terminology