Resources

A few years ago (quite a few now) a scholarly publication called Ars Textrina was produced in which articles about textiles were offered.  It was a Canadian publication through the University of Manitoba and in spite of the price being in US dollars (with a really horrendous exchange rate) I made the point of buying every one.

Then when I was really hurting for money, I culled books from my personal library and offered them on eBay.  People who knew about Ars Textrina rushed to buy the ones they had missed out on the first time, or just had never heard of until they stopped publication.

But I kept these two.

Patricia Hilts went through two old weaving manuscripts and rendered the drafts as thumbnails, with the original threading and tie up information.  By cross referencing the keys to the threadings, tie ups and looking at the draw down of the weave structure you can replicate what those weavers did a couple hundred years ago.

I use these books much like I use Oelsner's book.  A reference library of possibilities that I can pick and choose, adapt and rearrange, without starting from the very beginning.

You can see from the multiple post it notes that I use these books frequently in my design work.  Oelsner gets used less frequently, although I do use it as well.

We stand on the shoulders of giants.  While we can begin from scratch every single time, there is no need when we can begin with the seed of an idea, then build on it.

It would be like a cook re-inventing the recipe for a basic cake every time they wanted to make one.  Instead there is a basic cake recipe that can be modified.  So too can weaving drafts.

A motif can be expanded, contracted, repeated, mirrored, flipped on its head.  Borders with elements of the motif can be incorporated, or just a straight or point progression can be used.

The drafts can even be used as profile drafts much like I have taken four shaft twill motifs and changed them into 16 shaft twill blocks.

We are limited only by our imaginations and understanding of how the threads move through the cloth.  So I suggest that new weavers do drawdowns, by hand if they don't have weaving software (although iWeaveit is not terribly expensive and can be used on an ipad without much difficulty) and do enough drawdowns that they begin to understand how various weave structures work.

As a newish weaver I spent hours upon hours doing drawdowns (by hand, this was pre-personal computer days) of lace weaves until I thoroughly understood how lace weaves work.  Once I understood the usual threadings, I could see how other threading systems could also be tied up and treadled to make lacy cloth.

Not everyone needs to understand every weave structure.  There are plenty that I haven't tried, for various reasons,  But I have a grasp of the basic structures and how the threads move through the cloth.  This gives me freedom to use as is or adapt from the historical records.

If someone is new but wants to understand the craft more fully I can recommend Jane Stafford's on-line guild.  This year she is discussing twill, but once subscribed it is possible to go right to the beginning.  If you don't have a guild or good weaving teacher in your area, learning on-line is now a realistic possibility.

Publications like Heddlecraft delve deeply into different weave structures.

If you are just learning and feeling confused about how to get the loom dressed and learning the language, there is also Janet Dawson's on-line class

And of course there are my things.  (Link to the wet finish DVD.  Link to blurb and my books at the bottom of the page.)

The point is, we live in the 21st century.  We now have access to an incredible amount of information.  There are many many resources and all of the above will lead you to more.