Convergence® Yarn and the Plaited Twill
Marcy Petrini
September, 2016
As promised in the last blog, here is a picture of the scarf woven as a plaited twill using the Convergence® yarn, 10/2 Tencel, in the wood violet color way as the warp and a 12/2 grey purple silk as the weft; the drawdown is below.
(Right-click on these drafts to get a larger version in a new window.)
This draft has been derived from the Manual of Swedish Handweaving, by Ulla Cyrus-Zetterström, which was where I first came across plaited twills. My edition was printed in 1984. While there is no draft for a four shaft plaited twill in the book, the explanation of this class of twills and how they are derived makes it possible to adopt the information to four shafts.
The scarf doesn’t show the twill very well both because the warp is variegated and the sett of 24 epi makes each repeat only ⅓” of an inch. However, the twill lines going in different directions reflects the light nicely and gives the fabric movement.
Below is a sample woven with 3/2 cotton which shows the plaited twill much better.
While preparing for my Convergence® classes I wrote about plaited twills in my blog of January 18, 2016. However, I introduced an error when I said that plaited twills couldn’t be woven on four shafts (it has now been corrected). Plaited twills cannot be woven on four shafts using either a straight draw or a double two-tie unit, both of which are employed when weaving plaited wills on more than four shafts, as is shown in that blog. There I also showed a herringbone twill which is related to the four-shaft plaited twill, as can be seen in the drawdown above.
If we look at a slightly different drawdown for an 8-shaft plaited twill from that shown in that previous blog, we can see how the tie-up produces the plaiting: we have right hand and left hand twill lines, albeit broken, which form the basis of the tie-up. Then the threading and the treadling can be a straight draw.
(Right-click on these drafts to get a larger version in a new window.)
Using that principle, we can design plaited twills on any number of shafts. Here is a 40-shaft plaited twill which I designed recently. The tie-up shows very clearly the right and left hand twill lines. I am hoping to weave this twill soon!
(Right-click on these drafts to get a larger version in a new window.)
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