12 Twills of Christmas: Twill 10

3 January

Yesterday we revisited the advancing straight treadling, which nudges the twill line forward in little steps. In today’s draft we ring a couple of changes to that approach. Here both the threading and the treadling use the same advancing pattern, but this time it is based on a point draft on 4 shafts.

The threading begins 1-2-3-4-1-4-3-2 as if we were going to use a point draft over 8 ends (as seen here). But instead of going back to shaft 1 to repeat the first unit, we stop at shaft 2 and head off towards another point. Each point moves one shaft further forward than the previous one, until we have wrapped right around all four shafts and got back to where we started.

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Printable drafts and project planning notes for the Twelve Twills collection: six 4-shaft and six 8-shaft twills, all accessed through our beautiful online resource hub.

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In the mini-draft shown above you may be able to see a diagonal in the drawdown, from lower left to upper right, where the warp diamonds are large and the weft diamonds are small. To either side of that diagonal the weft diamonds get bigger while the warp diamonds get smaller. The diagonal is even more striking when the pattern is repeated.

If, instead of repeating the pattern, you stop at the peak of the final point and reverse it – so that the points ‘retreat’ rather than continue their advance – you get a less strongly diagonal design.

I often weave my twills in wool, which tends to soften the angles of diamonds like these and gives an effect more like a field of flowers. And who doesn’t love a field of flowers, especially in midwinter?