Eight structures, drawn out

Over, under, repeat. Every end binds on every pick, which makes the firmest and least interesting cloth you can build, and the one that keeps its shape when a scarf gets washed. Two shafts are enough; four are better, because threading 1‑2‑3‑4 and tying two treadles lets you weave it without the shafts fighting each other.

It is also the structure that punishes a wrong sett fastest. Too close and the weft will not pack; too open and you have scrim.

Shafts

2 (4 preferred)

Unit

2 × 2

Threading

1 2

Tie-up

1:1  2:2

Treadling

1 2

Float

1 / 1

Sett

80 / 10 cm

Plain weave with the ends and picks doubled up. Pairs of ends behave as one thick thread, so the cloth drapes more softly than tabby at the same sett and shows a chequerboard at arm's length. The pairs must be sleyed together in the same dent or the pattern loses its square.

Watch the selvedge: paired picks pull the edge in harder than single ones, and a floating selvedge end is close to mandatory.

Shafts

2

Unit

4 × 4

Threading

1 1 2 2

Tie-up

1:1  2:2

Treadling

1 1 2 2

Float

2 / 2

Sett

60 / 10 cm

The balanced twill, and the reason most looms have four shafts. Each end passes over two picks and under two, so the diagonal runs at forty-five degrees when the sett and the beat match. Half the interlacement of tabby means a softer, heavier cloth from the same yarn — this is what a woollen scarf wants.

Reverse the treadling to 1‑4‑3‑2 and the diagonal leans the other way; weave four picks of each direction and you have the simplest herringbone without touching the threading.

Shafts

4

Unit

4 × 4

Threading

1 2 3 4

Tie-up

1:1,2  2:2,3  3:3,4  4:4,1

Treadling

1 2 3 4

Float

2 / 2

Sett

100 / 10 cm

The same four shafts, one more shaft lifted per treadle, and now three quarters of the surface is warp. Use it when the warp is the yarn you want seen: a fine linen warp over a thick cotton weft gives a face that reads almost solid and a back that is the reverse of it.

The three-pick warp float wants a closer sett than 2/2, otherwise the long floats shift under the hand and the cloth goes slippery. The back of this cloth is a 1/3 weft-faced twill, which is sometimes the side you actually wanted.

Shafts

4

Unit

4 × 4

Threading

1 2 3 4

Tie-up

1:1,2,3  2:2,3,4  3:3,4,1  4:4,1,2

Treadling

1 2 3 4

Float

3 / 1

Sett

120 / 10 cm

A point threading under a 2/2 tie-up: the shafts climb 1‑2‑3‑4 and come back down 3‑2, so the diagonal turns and makes a zigzag across the width. Nothing changes at the treadles, which is why this is the first pattern most weavers try after a straight twill.

Note the float the turn creates. At the reversal the weft crosses three ends instead of two, and Draft will box it if your warning limit is set to two. It is harmless in a table runner and worth thinking about in a baby blanket.

Shafts

4

Unit

6 ends × 4 picks

Threading

1 2 3 4 3 2

Tie-up

1:1,2  2:2,3  3:3,4  4:4,1

Treadling

1 2 3 4

Float

2 / 3

Sett

100 / 10 cm

Take the chevron threading and turn the treadling at the same point, 1‑2‑3‑4‑3‑2, and the zigzag closes into a lattice of diamonds — the goose-eye of Scandinavian linen. One six-end, six-pick unit is the entire pattern; a tablecloth is that unit repeated two hundred times.

Because both directions reverse, the longest float is three in warp and weft alike. The pattern is unforgiving about beat: if your picks per centimetre drift, the diamonds stretch into lozenges and the eye catches it immediately.

Shafts

4

Unit

6 × 6

Threading

1 2 3 4 3 2

Tie-up

1:1,2  2:2,3  3:3,4  4:4,1

Treadling

1 2 3 4 3 2

Float

3 / 3

Sett

100 / 10 cm

Five shafts, five treadles, and one binding point per pick placed so that no two touch. Each treadle lifts four shafts and leaves one down; the one left down advances by two each pick, which is the satin counter. The surface is almost unbroken warp, and that is the point — light reflects off long floats and the cloth gains a sheen no twill can produce.

The price is fragility. A four-pick float is a four-pick snag, so satin belongs in a close sett with a smooth yarn and nowhere near a cat.

Shafts

5

Unit

5 × 5

Threading

1 2 3 4 5

Tie-up

four up, one down, counter 2

Treadling

1 2 3 4 5

Float

4 / 1

Sett

140 / 10 cm

This one is not a structure at all. The interlacement is plain weave throughout — floats of one in both directions — and the whole pattern comes from the colour order: dark, light, dark, light for eight ends, then light, dark for the next eight. Where the warp sequence is in step with the weft you see vertical lines; where it is out of step the lines turn horizontal, and the blocks appear out of nothing.

It is the cheapest possible demonstration that colour and structure are two different drawings, which is why it sits in the teaching set. Shadow weave and houndstooth are the same trick with a twill underneath.

Shafts

2

Unit

2 × 2 plus colour

Warp order

D L ×4, L D ×4

Weft order

D L ×4, L D ×4

Float

1 / 1

Sett

80 / 10 cm