Reading Drafts Part VIII

 

Satin blocks, draft is a draw up showing profile draft, threading draft and tie up

Drawloom draft and why I call the frames that hold heddles shafts.  Drawlooms have two 'harnesses' - the ground harness made up of 2 or more shafts, and the pattern harness which may be 10 to 50 shafts

Drawdown showing two different yarns used in the colour bars to the left and the top of the draw up and the tie up box indicated in the lower right in the greyed square

Draw ups with a colour photo showing the actual cloth

Photos taken from the above books.  Both of the books in Swedish are now available in English translations

So I forgot to sequentially number one of my posts in the 'thread' but did tag it with the 'threading draft' tag.  Realizing that I still had a bunch of books to do, decided to put these four in the same post.

The Cyrus-Zetterstrom has a lot of information packed into a small format and I still reach for it for specific things - like the formulas for metric yarn sizing.

The Damask one I bought in part for the drafts for drawlooms and the great line drawings of looms.  And because I thought that one day I would weave on a drawloom.  (My neck says nope, nope, nope.)

Warp and Weft is one of a series of draft compilations by a group of Swedish weavers.  I was introduced to one of them on a trip to Stockholm when Kerstin and I ran into her by chance.

And the Big Book of Weaving by Laila Lundell is a great introductory book for anyone dealing with a Scandinavian style loom, and just overall introduction to weaving from a Swedish perspective.

Prior to personal computers and weaving software, Swedish weaving drafts were traditionally done in a very specific manner.  Now that is changing as more people turn to the efficiency of using a computer.

The book Warp and Weft has some weave structures that are common in Sweden but less so in North America.  Traditionally Swedes weave on counter balanced looms (up to 16 shafts - yes, really!)  or counter march (also contre marche).  If anyone is interested in multi-shaft counter balanced looms, Lundell's Big Book of Weaving has great diagrams and explanations of how they work.

People tend to exist in their own personal reality bubble.  If they have never seen a multi-shaft counter balanced loom, they don't know that they do, in fact, exist.  I have woven on several.

If they don't know about drawlooms, they don't understand why I choose to use shaft rather than harness for a 'standard' floor loom which has just one 'harness' but may have 4, 8, 16, 32 shafts.

If they have never had a particular experience with a loom or yarn, they assume that it is user error, when it might be equipment or even environment.

Understanding the principles involved in this craft will help determine what is going wrong when it does, and inform decisions on how to fix the problem.

It is one reason why, when I decided to 'retire', I chose to continue to teach the Olds College master weaving class(es).  The program tries to teach the principles of the craft, encourages weavers to analyze their results and work towards figuring out the best approach to fixing any issues.

With the roll out of the vaccines beginning this month, there is now some hope that the classes will be able to happen, although possibly not.  It will depend on people getting a grip on the virus that is running rampant throughout the globe so that travel can happen and people can gather in groups in not very well ventilated rooms.

So - stay home if you can.  Wear a mask if you need to go out.  Maintain physical distance.  Knock this virus down, now.  Christmas is not cancelled, just how we celebrate it.  Let's all pull together and get our world - and our lives - back on track.