Textile Structure
how cloth is put together
Field

Pattern and colour

A draft is a periodic plane pattern with two states, so the symmetry is two-coloured. Colour order, and the things the eye reliably gets wrong.
weaveleave the faces aloneexchange themplain1616basket16162/2 twill16163/1 twill16none5-end satin20noneevery candidate operation tried against the repeat

Weaves as plane patterns

A draft is a periodic pattern with two states, so its symmetry is two-coloured. Some operations leave warp-up as warp-up and others exchange the two, and only a balanced weave has any of the second kind.

 only the order the coloured threads are put in changesthe weave2/2 twillfour dark, four light▪▪▪▪▫▫▫▫two dark, two light▪▪▫▫the face colour computed, not designed2/2 twill

Colour and weave

Thread the same weave with a different order of coloured ends and a pattern appears that is nowhere in the draft. Houndstooth is an ordinary two-and-two twill, and nothing about its interlacement is unusual at all.

 2/2 twilllongest float 216 interlacings per repeat1 separable clothrepeat 4 × 4generated, then counted4×4

The diagonal is not a thread

A twill's diagonal is the most looked-at feature in weaving and the most misdescribed. No thread in the cloth runs diagonally. What runs diagonally is a pattern of which thread is on top, which is a different sort of object.

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