Thursday, November 1, 2018

Twills



Standard 2:2 twill - enter shuttle from right hand side and the threads will all weave into the cloth.

Twill with basket weave selvedge.  

I routinely thread twill from the rear most shaft coming forward to the front.  The tie up is as shown (for either counter balanced or jack/rising shed looms) and I treadle beginning on the right side of the treadles, entering the shuttle from the right to the left.

Some people don't like a twill selvedge for some reason, so it is possible to do a half basket weave selvedge.  But it still means a two thread 'float' at the selvedge.

The only time you need to use a floating selvedge for twill is if the direction of the diagonal changes -  in other words, you change the direction of the twill line.  In this instance I use a herringbone or dornick threading and treadling.


By skipping an end in the sequence you wind up with a slight line at the reverse in both threading and treadling, but you don't need the floating selvedges because the ends on the selvedge will not drop out when the twill direction is changed.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Light bulb moment!!!!

This puts a number of concepts together for me in a clear fashion.

Thank you.

Diana said...

Did not mean to be anonymous.

Thank you again,

Diana

Hildred said...

I found this pretty helpful too!

Margaret said...

Maybe I'm still not understanding this, but when I look at the third draft, it looks like you'll skip the outer thread opposite of where where you start. That is, if you start throwing right to left, you'll end with the weft on top of the left-most warp end. When you begin the throw in the next shed, the weft will again be on top of the left-most warp thread, and thus won't wrap around it and it will be skipped.

Help!

Laura Fry said...

There will be a two thread 'float' at the selvedge, not a plain weave interlacement. If this is a problem for the cloth you are weaving, then you might wish to use a floating selvedge. However, I don't find a two thread (or sometimes more with fine threads) float at the selvedge to be a particular problem. Try it and see what you prefer and what is suitable for the yarns you are using and the purpose the cloth is to perform.

Margaret said...

Thanks for explaining! I was worried I was missing something. I think I tend to be a bit obsessed with never having skips, even though I prefer to weave without floating selvedges. It's definitely worth sampling next time — instead of assuming that I must avoid the skips.

marie said...

I wish I could figure out a way to do a basketweave with an 8 shaft draft. But the best I get is a half basket where two threads end up forming a sort of tunnell....