Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Draft for Red Towels

A couple of people have commented on the draft I used for the red towel warp.

I have 16 shafts on my AVL so generally I will thread a design over all 16. There are a number of advantages for doing this such as giving me more options and spreading the threads out over a greater distance which is sometimes helpful if the yarns are set very close together or if the warp yarns are a bit grabby.

I really like the Wall of Troy threading. You only need four shafts for it, but by spreading it out over more you get more options during weaving.


Wall of Troy - four shafts:



The threading is a 10 thread repeat so it is fairly simple to thread and to treadle. As mentioned previously I tend to break treadling sequences down into a form of choreography - in this instance I begin with the shuttle going from right to left for the first pick and in my head I count '1'. With 10 picks to the repeat I count from 1 to 10 as I weave so that if I run out of weft yarn at, say, '7', I know exactly where I am in the sequence.

If you have more shafts you can extend the threading as below for 8 shafts:



Notice that the tie up for this draft is a 1/3/3/1 tie up. On my AVL I extended the Wall of Troy over all 16 shafts and used a 1/3/1/3/3/1/3/1 tie up in the pink area. In the cottolin part I used a twill block tie up. It's a subtle difference and hard to see in the photo.


In this draft I have isolated the Wall of Troy by bracketing it with straight twill.


Overall I find this threading versatile and easy to thread so I confess I come back to it in different iterations a lot. For example with 16 shafts I can make the /\/ over 4 shafts, 8 shafts, 12 shafts or 16 shafts, expanding the motif for a more dramatic look.

4 comments:

Jennifer said...

Very cool. You are so knowledgeable - thanks for sharing!

Wishing you good health and much energy,
Jennifer

Rhonda from Baddeck said...

This is great information. Thanks for showing how easily the pattern look can be changed by adding straight twill, and for offering these 'mini lessons.' They're easier for me to understand than trying to process a lot at once. Your blog is a tremendous resource.

Lynn Majidimehr said...

Thany you so much for the mini-lesson!

Gingerbreadshouse7 said...

Being a newbie, I'm thankful of the easy way you post for understanding..I have a 4 shaft and I like what I see, if I can only get there..thanks much for sharing.