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Essays arrive in groups rather than one at a time. The most recent group is below in full, and every earlier one after it, newest first.

Essays arrive in groups rather than one at a time, and a group usually opens up a subject not covered before. Between one group and the next nothing changes, so a reader who has seen the most recent group has seen everything.

3 November 2026

7 essays on compound and figured cloths, what cloth is, cloth doing a job, after the loom, mechanics and drape, pattern and colour and weaves

The partner's peak against how late a slackener starts. The largest tension the partner's front span reaches, against the share of the shed opened when the slackener starts to drop, at a 4 mm rise. It stays at 1.07 N for any start up to 0.748 of the shed, where the partner with no slackener passes that tension. Later than that, the peak is the touched tension at the moment it starts, up to 1.39 N at 0.95, against 1.48 N for no slackener at all. Compound and figured cloths

A leno's slackener only has to arrive

A slackener that lets the doup down in step with the loop keeps a leno's partner clear at every moment of the shed, and it looked as though a real one would have to track that closely. It does not. A partner's tension only rises as the shed opens, so a slackener can leave its whole drop until three quarters of the way up and the peak does not move at all. Lateness is paid for elsewhere: starting later than 0.58 of the shed rubs the loop more than having no slackener, and above 234 picks a minute a falling weight cannot start as late as the partner would let it.

7 figures
A bay window's drops cut from one roll, three ways. Four drops of 250 cm and two of 140 cm cut from one roll of a 64 cm repeat, drawn along the roll to scale with the cloth lost between drops shaded. A straight match loses 76 cm at best. A half-drop cut in hanging order loses 154 cm. The same half-drop in its best order loses 44 cm, by keeping the long drops together, where each loses 6 cm, and changing class only after a short drop, which prefers to. What cloth is

A bay window wastes less than a wall

When a job's drops are all one length, a half-drop's best cutting order has one forced move, because the cutter has to change class once whatever the drops would prefer. Mix the lengths, as a bay window or a window over a radiator does, and each length sets its own price for what follows it. Six drops then lose a quarter of a repeat a gap instead of three tenths. Whether every drop can have its way is the bridges of Königsberg on two islands, and for a straight match mixing the lengths does almost nothing: its order can only choose which drop is cut last.

7 figures
A fibre end prickles only inside a window. The lengths at which a wool fibre end can press on skin with the measured threshold force, against its diameter. Above the rising curve the end is too long a column and lies over before it reaches the force. Below the falling curve it is too short to sink far enough into a skin of 30 kPa to reach it. The two meet at 23.2 µm and 1.08 mm, and no fibre finer than that prickles at any length. A 30 µm fibre prickles between 0.83 and 1.79 mm. Cloth doing a job

A fibre end prickles only inside a window

A fibre end pressed against skin has two ways to fail to hurt. Too long, and the column lies over before it reaches the force a nerve answers to. Too short, and the tip cannot sink far enough into something as soft as skin to push that hard. The two limits run opposite ways with diameter and they cross, so a fibre below one diameter cannot prickle at any length at all — and that diameter has no protruding length in it. It also settles a sum left unweighed: a crop at 1.1 mm makes a wool cloth two and a half times worse, and one at 0.6 mm removes the prickle.

8 figures
The ring across eight dips, for each fibre. The ring's depth after each of eight twenty-second dips, where an empty fibre left in the bath for good would fill by 20% a dip. instant fibre: 14.0% after one and 23.5% after eight; τ = 20 s: 13.0% after one and 19.6% after eight; τ = 100 s: 23.1% after one and 26.1% after eight; τ = 400 s: 35.5% after one and 36.6% after eight. An instant fibre earns its ring by saturating the skin dip by dip. A slow one starts near its final depth, since it never fills its skin. After the loom

A slow fibre starts its ring deep

Every account of an indigo dip here lets a cotton fibre take its dye at once. Give the fibre a clock of its own and the ring does not simply run deeper, which is what the question seemed to ask. A clock of a few seconds makes the ring shallower, by nearly a fifth at most, and only past about twenty-six seconds does it run deeper than an instant fibre's. Two sections tell the accounts apart that one cannot: an instant fibre earns its ring dip by dip, from 14 to 23.5 per cent of the radius over eight dips, and a fibre with a hundred-second clock starts at 23 and ends at 26.

7 figures
One surplus, three depths, one slope. A 300 mm width of three cloths under 5 newtons per metre, each shortened by 1.0%, drawn at one scale in both directions. a chiffon has wrinkles 43 mm apart and 1.4 mm deep; a shirting has wrinkles 127 mm apart and 4.1 mm deep; a coating has wrinkles 249 mm apart and 8.0 mm deep. All three leave the plane at the same steepest slope, 11.5°, because that slope is set by the surplus alone. Mechanics and drape

A stiff cloth's wrinkle is deeper and no steeper

Stiffness sets how far apart a wrinkle's crests lie, and the surplus length it has to hide sets the rest. Scale a wrinkle up and its slopes do not change, so one per cent of surplus leaves a chiffon, a shirting and a coating all at 11.5 degrees, 1.4 to 8 millimetres deep. The steepness has no cloth in it — and steepness is what a light reads.

7 figures
A 2/2 twill line's ends where the reed leaves them. A light warp line 3 ends wide in a dark 2/2 twill, with the ends drawn at their true places at a cover of 60% and both boundaries traced. Set evenly the edge swings 2.00 thread spacings. With 3 ends to a dent, closed by 40% of a spacing so that they touch, and the line on the dent's edge, it swings 1.20. One end along in the same reed it swings 2.40, more than if it had been set evenly. The weave and the reed are the same in the last two. Only where the line starts has changed. Pattern and colour

A stripe's edge is cleanest inside one dent

No weave can draw a line with a straight edge, since the thread at the boundary must go under somewhere. A cloth has one freedom its weave lacks, which is the spacing of its ends, and it looked as though crowding a stripe's outer end could halve the swing. It cannot, in most cloth: two ends stop at a diameter apart, so the swing falls only as far as the cover. The freedom that costs nothing is another one. A line's narrowest unbroken width is exactly its swing plus one, so it fits one dent of a reed, and the same reed gives 1.2 thread spacings or 2.4 according to which end of the dent the line begins on.

6 figures
One warp feed, in the body and in a tucked zone of plain weave. A section along one warp end of 20 tex cotton, in plain weave woven at 70 per cent of its maximum pick density, in the body of the cloth and in the tucked zone with two picks to a shed. Both ends are fed the same length per pick, so the zone's end rises only 0.124 mm against the body's 0.161 mm, and the weft takes up the difference. The cloth is 0.341 mm thick in the body and 0.377 mm in the zone, 11 per cent thicker. The climb between crossings is drawn smooth rather than as the model's arcs and tangent. Weaves

A tucked edge stands proud because its warp goes straight

A tucked zone holds two picks in every shed, and the obvious account is that the pairs run out of room and bulge. The loom says otherwise: the warp is let off as one sheet and the cloth taken up at one speed, so the zone's ends have only the body's length to spend. They rise less. The weft takes up the height, so the edge is proud well before the pairs stop fitting, and they stand up well after the count says they must.

8 figures

Before that

Everything published earlier, newest first. Titles only — the cards are on the full listing.

30 October 2026

1 essay on knits and other structures

25 October 2026

2 essays on compound and figured cloths and setting and geometry

21 October 2026

2 essays on what cloth is and knits and other structures

19 October 2026

2 essays on setting and geometry and pattern and colour

14 October 2026

2 essays on compound and figured cloths and weaves

5 October 2026

2 essays on what cloth is and setting and geometry

2 October 2026

3 essays on what cloth is, weaves and after the loom

30 September 2026

4 essays on compound and figured cloths, weaves, knits and other structures and pattern and colour

28 September 2026

3 essays on what cloth is, setting and geometry and pattern and colour

26 September 2026

6 essays on after the loom, cloth doing a job and knits and other structures

25 September 2026

10 essays on after the loom, compound and figured cloths, what cloth is, pattern and colour and weaves

24 September 2026

11 essays on pattern and colour, compound and figured cloths, weaves, what cloth is, knits and other structures and setting and geometry

23 September 2026

13 essays on what cloth is, after the loom, pattern and colour, cloth doing a job, knits and other structures, weaves, compound and figured cloths and setting and geometry

20 September 2026

13 essays on what cloth is, after the loom, compound and figured cloths, pattern and colour, knits and other structures, cloth doing a job, weaves and setting and geometry

17 September 2026

11 essays on pattern and colour, compound and figured cloths, after the loom, weaves, knits and other structures and setting and geometry

13 September 2026

9 essays on pattern and colour, compound and figured cloths, what cloth is, cloth doing a job and knits and other structures

12 September 2026

15 essays on pattern and colour, compound and figured cloths, what cloth is and weaves

5 September 2026

50 essays on pattern and colour, compound and figured cloths, what cloth is, weaves, knits and other structures, setting and geometry, after the loom, cloth doing a job and mechanics and drape

3 September 2026

20 essays on knits and other structures, what cloth is, after the loom, setting and geometry, cloth doing a job and mechanics and drape

1 September 2026

20 essays on knits and other structures, after the loom, mechanics and drape, cloth doing a job and setting and geometry

31 August 2026

20 essays on pattern and colour, knits and other structures, what cloth is, compound and figured cloths, after the loom, cloth doing a job, mechanics and drape, weaves and setting and geometry

30 August 2026

20 essays on what cloth is, pattern and colour, knits and other structures, compound and figured cloths, after the loom, cloth doing a job, weaves, mechanics and drape and setting and geometry

28 August 2026

20 essays on what cloth is, pattern and colour, knits and other structures, compound and figured cloths, after the loom, cloth doing a job, mechanics and drape, setting and geometry and weaves

27 August 2026

15 essays on what cloth is, pattern and colour, knits and other structures, compound and figured cloths, after the loom, cloth doing a job, mechanics and drape, setting and geometry and weaves

26 August 2026

15 essays on what cloth is, pattern and colour, knits and other structures, compound and figured cloths, cloth doing a job, weaves, setting and geometry, after the loom and mechanics and drape

24 August 2026

15 essays on what cloth is, pattern and colour, knits and other structures, compound and figured cloths, cloth doing a job, mechanics and drape, after the loom, weaves and setting and geometry

22 August 2026

15 essays on what cloth is, knits and other structures, pattern and colour, compound and figured cloths, cloth doing a job, mechanics and drape, after the loom, setting and geometry and weaves

21 August 2026

15 essays on what cloth is, pattern and colour, knits and other structures, mechanics and drape, setting and geometry, compound and figured cloths, after the loom, cloth doing a job and weaves

20 August 2026

15 essays on what cloth is, pattern and colour, knits and other structures, mechanics and drape, setting and geometry, after the loom, compound and figured cloths, cloth doing a job and weaves

19 August 2026

15 essays on what cloth is, pattern and colour, mechanics and drape, knits and other structures, setting and geometry, after the loom, compound and figured cloths, cloth doing a job and weaves

18 August 2026

15 essays on what cloth is, mechanics and drape, pattern and colour, knits and other structures, setting and geometry, compound and figured cloths, cloth doing a job, after the loom and weaves

16 August 2026

15 essays on mechanics and drape, pattern and colour, what cloth is, knits and other structures, setting and geometry, weaves and compound and figured cloths

15 August 2026

15 essays on cloth doing a job

11 August 2026

15 essays on compound and figured cloths, what cloth is, pattern and colour and weaves

10 August 2026

12 essays on mechanics and drape, what cloth is, setting and geometry, knits and other structures and weaves

4–8 August 2026

34 essays on weaves, mechanics and drape, knits and other structures, setting and geometry, pattern and colour and what cloth is

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