What's new
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.
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
Pattern and colour
An even shading cannot keep its surface level
Sixty-four six-end shadings hold every middle tone to a float of two, and the question left over was whether any of them keeps a tone ramp's surface level the way a twill read in order does. None does, and all of them sink by exactly the same depth — 43.3 micrometres on a sheeting, a sixth of the cloth. The reason is a counting argument a recording engineer would recognise: a limit on how long a thread may float is a limit on run length, and a run-length limit forces a floor on how often the thread changes face. A level ramp needs every tone at the extremes' rate, which needs a float of half the repeat at the midtone and more beside it — exactly the floats the twill in order has.
Compound and figured cloths
A heddle eye lets the kink through
A leno's crossing end is pulled up at its doup and held down at its back standard, and the length that costs was priced as if both heddle eyes were frictionless. They grip, and gripping ought to trap the kink between them at nearly a hundred per cent strain. It does not come close. A capstan bounds a ratio of tensions, not a difference, and the spans either side are already stretched, so at a coefficient of 0.3 the span between the eyes takes 9.48 newtons against 7.08 with no friction at all — a third more, not fifteen times more — and an easer has to give back 67.9 millimetres rather than 64.4. What friction changes more is when the length is wanted.
Pattern and colour
A net of three directions beats a voile one way at a time
A tulle's threads run three ways at sixty degrees and a voile's run two ways at ninety, so a net hung over a voile could show one family of fringes, three, or a lattice of them. It shows two, at right angles, and they are nothing alike. Along the voile threads that lie parallel to one of the net's, the net beats exactly as a one-directional net does: six-millimetre fringes from three metres. Across them no set of the net lies anywhere near, and the only slow beat comes from a line of points two sets make together at √3 over the net's pitch — fringes four times wider and a fifteenth as strong, with a null at 8.8 metres where the strong family has none.
Pattern and colour
A colour-and-weave look costs its cheaper order
The finest colour-and-weave effects need the rarest loom because a weft order is thrown pick by pick and a warp order is laid out once, so an effect's price was said to be its weft. That is true of a construction and false of a cloth. The same cloth can be woven lying across the loom, with its warp order thrown as weft and its weft order laid in the warp, and then it costs the other order. Over every two-colour look twelve small weaves make with orders up to six threads — 4,036 of them — 55 per cent need a loom picking at will as drawn and 31 per cent need one either way round. The looks turning rescues are the ones fine in one direction only, and not one of the trade's named effects is among them.
Compound and figured cloths
A figured warp needs a beam for every share of its figure
Figure and ground take up warp at different rates, so a figured cloth on one beam is bounded in how long its figure may run, and a second beam is the obvious escape. It escapes only for ends that live wholly in one region. An end that crosses the figure for part of the repeat consumes warp at its own rate, and two ends can share a beam only if they spend the same share of the repeat in the figure and never drift a slack apart inside it. So a round figure twelve blocks across needs four beams, ninety-six blocks across needs twenty-nine, and any crimp difference at all — a third of a per cent will do — costs every one of them over a piece.
After the loom
A nap is paid for by the taper of the pattern
A raised cloth's fibres lean, so a panel turned end for end shows a different amount of fibre and every piece of a garment has to lie the same way along the bolt. What that costs is not a property of the cloth. A rectangle costs nothing laid one way; a tapered panel costs (1 − r)/(1 + r) of extra cloth in lanes, where r is its narrow width over its wide one; and the best any one-way lay can do is exactly half of that, because a trapezoid's difference body is a hexagon and hexagons tile. On a real width it arrives in whole panel lengths: six skirt gores take 75 centimetres two ways and 150 one way.
Weaves
A satin's row belongs to its sett
Point paper draws an end and a pick as equal squares, and every result about which satins have a row was taken there. A cloth is not square: it is set at so many ends and so many picks a centimetre, and in cloth the ties that made twelve satin orders row-free are ties between steps of different shape, which break at the first per cent of unequal sett. The reverse happens too. An eight-end satin, rowed on paper, has no row at exactly 1.291 ends per pick; an eleven-end at 1.265 and 1.528. And the only scatter that survives a range of setts is an irregular satin whose closest steps are mirror images — which nine ends has from the first per cent and ten only by 1.3.
Knits and other structures
A tuck decides whether a third of two-bed fabrics lean
A jersey leans because every loop is on one bed and a rib does not because its loops are mirrored across two, and the count that says so treated a tuck as nothing. A tuck is a loop of the same lively yarn wrapped round a needle of one bed, and nobody here has measured how much of a knit loop's lean it carries. It matters. Of the 1,135 two-bed fabrics a two-needle, two-course frame can make, 135 are balanced whatever a tuck carries and 612 lean whatever it carries — and 388, a third, are balanced under one answer and lean under the other. A half-cardigan leans a third of a jersey if a tuck carries nothing and not at all if it carries a full loop's torque, which makes it the instrument that would settle the question.
Pattern and colour
A turned block is a moved origin
An eight-end satin figured on a 2/2 twill fails on 55,536 profiles at a block eight picks by two ends and on none at two by eight, and that was read as a property of the block's shape. Sweep the relative origin as well and the two shapes trade places: at every one of the sixteen origins exactly one of them fails, and over the sixteen they fail equally often. A shape asymmetry that no origin removes exists, and it needs a satin whose move squared is not one.
Weaves
A cloth's derivation class is its census of small patches
The manuals' derivations cut the 426 four-by-four cloths into 157 orbits, and an orbit is found by searching a group of 256 operations. The question left was whether a short list of numbers read off a draft could do the same job. The familiar ones cannot. Marks, interlacings, layers, plane group, float lengths, crossings per thread and distinct ends and picks are all invariant, and all seven together tell 120 of the orbits apart. A census of the two-by-two patches a draft contains tells 127 apart. A census of its three-by-three patches tells all 157 apart — a complete invariant of derivation, computed by counting windows rather than by searching operations.
Setting and geometry
A weight fixes the fibre and not the drape
Every plain cotton cloth of 150 grams a square metre contains the same fibre, and the count decides only how it is arranged. Across the counts that can make that weight, thickness rises threefold and cover falls in step, so their product holds still. The bending length does something stranger: at the bound a woven yarn actually sits near, it depends on neither the count nor the weight, only on the fibre.
Before that
Everything published earlier, newest first. Titles only — the cards are on the full listing.
15 September 2026
19 essays on pattern and colour, compound and figured cloths, what cloth is, weaves, after the loom and cloth doing a job
- A net in front gives the figure to the room — pattern and colour
- A curtain is gathered so that it is seen edge-on — pattern and colour
- A loop has a maximum force in it — compound and figured cloths
- What a sheer hides is decided by the furniture — pattern and colour
- A bouclé wears from the loops down — compound and figured cloths
- An unbroken line is not a clean one — pattern and colour
- The census counted two systems and a surface has one — what cloth is
- A jacquard's harness has a depth after all — compound and figured cloths
- Four drafts in five have no path along their own crowns — what cloth is
- The finest colour-and-weave effects need the rarest loom — pattern and colour
- A cotton's own water is a twentieth of what a cloth holds — what cloth is
- A damask is the only figure that costs its beam nothing — compound and figured cloths
- No cloth derives into more than three others — weaves
- A float limit leaves one row-free satin — weaves
- A jersey has no float for a wire to catch — after the loom
- A wet fibre is stiffer and a wet yarn is not locked — what cloth is
- An irregular satin scatters where a regular one lines up — weaves
- A grade charges by the length and a cutter pays by the panel — cloth doing a job
- A fault map is worth most where the grade is worst — cloth doing a job
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
- A figured sheer is a negative from one side — pattern and colour
- A net over a voile beats through a harmonic — pattern and colour
- A six-end shading can be even or have a plain centre, not both — pattern and colour
- An easer gives back the kink the crossed shed puts in — compound and figured cloths
- A bouclé loop is an elastica, not a semicircle — compound and figured cloths
- A skew steps at every seam and a bow at none — what cloth is
- A tube of one size presses the calf harder than the ankle — cloth doing a job
- A circular machine leans its courses whatever the yarn — knits and other structures
- An inflated beam wrinkles at a moment with no cloth in it — cloth doing a job
12 September 2026
15 essays on pattern and colour, compound and figured cloths, what cloth is and weaves
- A damask's edge floats further than its figure — pattern and colour
- Two sheers make a moiré that walks with the viewer — pattern and colour
- A point tie nearly doubles the float at the turn — compound and figured cloths
- A sheer hides whichever side is darker — pattern and colour
- A brocade weft floats as far as the next figure — compound and figured cloths
- A weft stripe is counted in pairs of picks — pattern and colour
- A jacquard harness needs three half-spans of height — compound and figured cloths
- No weave draws an unbroken line one thread wide — pattern and colour
- A double cloth is only softer if its yarn is set — compound and figured cloths
- The doup end pays for the crossing — compound and figured cloths
- A bouclé is set by its loops and weighed by its count — compound and figured cloths
- Two lots of one cloth drift apart down a drop — what cloth is
- Most satins still have a diagonal — weaves
- A cloth slips at its least-interlaced thread — weaves
- A selvedge holds only where its edge end changes face — weaves
10 September 2026
20 essays on pattern and colour, compound and figured cloths, what cloth is, weaves and after the loom
- A tone ramp is a valley, and the satin digs it — pattern and colour
- A tone step does not need a satin — pattern and colour
- A weave is a halftone screen with n greys — pattern and colour
- An interchange joins what a stitch would have had to — compound and figured cloths
- A colour order beats the weave it is threaded on — pattern and colour
- Two layers need two beams — compound and figured cloths
- A moiré is a vernier, and it magnifies the error too — pattern and colour
- The repeat allows four layers and the loom allows two — compound and figured cloths
- A designed thin place is kinder than an accidental one — compound and figured cloths
- A fancy yarn has its crimp in the wrong thread — compound and figured cloths
- A repeat has to fit the width — what cloth is
- A group is one thread for cover and two for bending — weaves
- A repeat has to fit the panel, and the panel is cut — what cloth is
- A cord's height has a ceiling and its width has none — weaves
- A profile draft is a notation whose alphabet is weaves — what cloth is
- A lifting plan says nothing without a threading — what cloth is
- The four named weaves are corners of a family — weaves
- What nothing separates comes out together — weaves
- A wrinkle cannot settle what a crease settles — after the loom
- A crease cannot cross a seam — after the loom
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
- A crepe is a yarn that will not lie still — pattern and colour
- A shadow stripe is two twists — pattern and colour
- A leno twists what a weave only crosses — compound and figured cloths
- A braid is a third way to hold threads — compound and figured cloths
- Why a knit runs and a weave frays — what cloth is
- The closest approach is not the crossing — what cloth is
- Where a yarn is thinnest — what cloth is
- A woven cloth is not linked at all — weaves
- A fabric is a population of contacts — what cloth is
- A jersey's course has no writhe — knits and other structures
- A woven cloth asked the same question — weaves
- A point cannot link — knits and other structures
- Five symptoms of one omission — knits and other structures
- Why a slack yarn snarls — setting and geometry
- A yarn that has been set has no torque — after the loom
- How much yarn has to hang — setting and geometry
- The fabric that does not fit — knits and other structures
- The twist a fabric gives back — after the loom
- A snarl comes in one size — setting and geometry
- The flattening nobody fitted — knits and other structures
- A wet knit's yarn is flatter — after the loom
- The folding rule is not a torque balance — setting and geometry
- A flattening that follows the tightness factor — knits and other structures
- A knot is nothing but contact — cloth doing a job
- What wetting does to the bending limit — after the loom
- The folding rule is a surface angle — setting and geometry
- Where a knot breaks — cloth doing a job
- A loop bends at twice its own radius — knits and other structures
- The diameter that does need a state — after the loom
- What a balanced yarn is balanced about — setting and geometry
- A knot halves a yarn and says why — cloth doing a job
- Contact is not why a jersey stops — knits and other structures
- A cabled yarn is a fold of folds — setting and geometry
- Which yarns knot well — cloth doing a job
- What holds a crest apart — knits and other structures
- What a high-twist yarn costs a cloth — setting and geometry
- A tuck is the one stitch that links twice — knits and other structures
- What a sett is when the yarn is not round — setting and geometry
- A thread has a second stiffness — mechanics and drape
- What a flattened yarn does to its cover — setting and geometry
- Twist is not torsion — mechanics and drape
- The count that decides how flat — setting and geometry
- The one fibre whose answer is known — mechanics and drape
- What a closed thread cannot choose — mechanics and drape
- Where a torsion model stops — mechanics and drape
- Flattening is free and impossible — mechanics and drape
- The section that changes both stiffnesses — mechanics and drape
- What a contact model would have to do — mechanics and drape
- A fabric reads its own bracket four ways — mechanics and drape
- Where this collection's thread model now stands — 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
- A rib climbs a gap — knits and other structures
- What a thickness gauge reads on a knit — what cloth is
- Every fabric's thread lies in a plane — what cloth is
- Where a two-bed fabric's yarn is — knits and other structures
- A rib is quietest at two diameters — knits and other structures
- Which knitted fabrics lie flat — knits and other structures
- A tube and an interlock balance for different reasons — knits and other structures
- A state is a thickness too — after the loom
- How thick a knit is — knits and other structures
- The constants say nothing about thickness — after the loom
- A rib's relaxation is not its bending either — after the loom
- How dense a knitted fabric is — setting and geometry
- A knit is warm because of where its yarn is not — cloth doing a job
- What a cuff presses with — cloth doing a job
- A run cannot cross a bed — cloth doing a job
- A loop is a plane curve in another plane — mechanics and drape
- What leaving the plane costs — mechanics and drape
- The force that holds a knit open — mechanics and drape
- How little asymmetry a curl needs — mechanics and drape
- What a knit gives up when it is pressed — 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
- A loop is nine tenths free run — knits and other structures
- The relaxed knit is not at a minimum — knits and other structures
- What a knit gives when it is pulled — knits and other structures
- A jersey gets taller before it gets shorter — knits and other structures
- How far a knit could go if its yarn were the limit — knits and other structures
- A rib pulls back on a force the loop supplies — knits and other structures
- A loop is set and not sprung — after the loom
- Two knits with one tightness factor are one knit — after the loom
- What holds a nap in a knit — after the loom
- A thread between two crossings is an elastica — mechanics and drape
- The knitted pilling criterion gets its number — cloth doing a job
- A force is what an energy does when a crossing moves — mechanics and drape
- A run is a race between two energies — cloth doing a job
- A woven thread has no room to bend — setting and geometry
- A seam must give what the knit gives — cloth doing a job
- What a loop presses with — mechanics and drape
- What a loop model still cannot say — mechanics and drape
- The modulus a knit has instead of one — mechanics and drape
- A knit bends more easily along its courses — mechanics and drape
- What friction has to hold in a relaxed knit — mechanics and drape
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
- A cloth is more opaque than it is closed — pattern and colour
- A knit gives up its fibres more easily — knits and other structures
- A yarn's surface is a distribution — what cloth is
- Hair, nap and pile are one construction — compound and figured cloths
- A yarn has a diameter for every instrument — what cloth is
- Two hairiness meters read two moments — what cloth is
- A light touch never reaches the crowns — what cloth is
- The hairs decide the sign of the wetting — what cloth is
- A hair layer is a balance, not a stock — after the loom
- Abrasion takes the hairs first — cloth doing a job
- A pill is anchored, not made — cloth doing a job
- A print is as sharp as the hairs are long — after the loom
- The strong fibre is the one that pills — cloth doing a job
- A compression curve is two laws in series — mechanics and drape
- Prickle is a buckling load — cloth doing a job
- A hair layer veils a highlight — weaves
- A woven filter beats its own rating — cloth doing a job
- Hairiness goes as the root of the count — setting and geometry
- Warmth is mostly the hairs — mechanics and drape
- The spinning triangle decides the hair — 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
- A cloth has an outside — what cloth is
- The curve that says what a cloth touches with — what cloth is
- A figure shows by its shine, not its step — pattern and colour
- A jersey has two surfaces — knits and other structures
- Two drafts of twenty-two thousand — what cloth is
- How much of a cloth is touching — what cloth is
- A pile is the only surface with no crowns — compound and figured cloths
- A thickness gauge reads the draft — what cloth is
- Raising moves the surface onto the hairs — after the loom
- A cloth loses its strength before its mass — cloth doing a job
- A coating fills the crowns before it bridges the holes — after the loom
- A float reflects into a line — weaves
- A seam stands proud and wears first — cloth doing a job
- Friction is two surfaces, not one — after the loom
- Lustre is a length times a width — weaves
- A calender buys the width — weaves
- A cloth compresses along its own bearing curve — mechanics and drape
- Turn the cloth and the shine changes hands — weaves
- A crepe is flat in its draft and not in its surface — weaves
- The sett owns the pitch and the yarn owns the height — 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
- The spread was never free — what cloth is
- The hairs are what touch — what cloth is
- A cloth cannot be more even than its yarn — pattern and colour
- Why a knit shows a thick place — knits and other structures
- A tuft is set so it cannot untwist — compound and figured cloths
- A chenille is a yarn that is already a fabric — compound and figured cloths
- Singeing is the cheapest change to a surface — after the loom
- A sewing thread is a different animal — cloth doing a job
- A yarn breaks at its thinnest place — mechanics and drape
- How many fibres make a thread — setting and geometry
- A finer yarn is a worse yarn — setting and geometry
- A straight fibre cannot share the load — mechanics and drape
- The other crepe is in the yarn — weaves
- The other half of the twist curve — setting and geometry
- What grips the end of a fibre — mechanics and drape
- Folding is untwisting — setting and geometry
- The singles inside a ply are not the singles — mechanics and drape
- A two-fold yarn is not twice a single — setting and geometry
- Twist decides where in the bracket — mechanics and drape
- The diameter was quoted at one twist — setting and geometry
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
- A cloth is a population, not a thread — what cloth is
- A random error hides and a periodic one shows — pattern and colour
- A course is one thread and a warp is many — knits and other structures
- A slub finds the width of the cloth — pattern and colour
- Three mistakes and the shape each one leaves — compound and figured cloths
- A finish spends a spread before it spends a mean — after the loom
- A tear asks fewer threads than a pull — cloth doing a job
- A thickness is a maximum, not a mean — mechanics and drape
- Half the air goes through a tenth of the holes — setting and geometry
- What a missing end does to the weave — weaves
- A bundle is weaker than its threads — mechanics and drape
- A mispick is one row in the wrong place — weaves
- A missing end is a fault the length of the piece — cloth doing a job
- A warp jams where its threads are thickest — setting and geometry
- Which weave hides a fault — 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
- A hole is a channel, not an opening — what cloth is
- Two layers are the product on average and nowhere — pattern and colour
- Opacity is not cover — pattern and colour
- A knit has no hole to lose — knits and other structures
- A leno's hole cannot drift — compound and figured cloths
- A filter is rated by the hole it does not show — cloth doing a job
- A cloth stops having holes before it stops passing air — cloth doing a job
- A windproof cloth is at its yarn's limit — cloth doing a job
- Only a plain weave has one size of hole — weaves
- The fourth power is a close cloth's rule — setting and geometry
- A satin's hole is a slot — weaves
- One minus the cover is a cloth with no thickness — setting and geometry
- The pore that wicks is the pore that leaks — after the loom
- The wind takes the air and not the cloth — cloth doing a job
- Warmth is a thickness of air — 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
- A cloth gives back less than it took — what cloth is
- The most a cloth can give back — what cloth is
- A motif is drawn at the wrong shape on purpose — pattern and colour
- A knit relaxes for as long as it is allowed to — knits and other structures
- A jersey leans because its yarn still turns — knits and other structures
- A crushed pile is not held down by its fibres — compound and figured cloths
- A knee is a dome imposed a thousand times — cloth doing a job
- A cloth has one budget for two directions — mechanics and drape
- A cloth shrinks most the first time — after the loom
- A crease is a fold the crimp cannot supply — after the loom
- How sharply a weave lets a cloth fold — weaves
- Recovery is measured and nothing predicts it — mechanics and drape
- The construction a loom must be set to — setting and geometry
- A tensioned cloth loses its load — mechanics and drape
- Which fibres crease, and why there are two answers — after the loom
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
- What water does to a thread — what cloth is
- A yarn's voids are not enough — what cloth is
- A loop has no closure condition — knits and other structures
- A shading changes two things at once — pattern and colour
- A knit's change of state is not its swelling — knits and other structures
- A wetting supplies the force the criterion needs — compound and figured cloths
- A garment is cut dry and worn wet — cloth doing a job
- The swelling a cloth cannot take — mechanics and drape
- Two shrinkages, one tape measure — after the loom
- A wet cloth is set closer than it was woven — setting and geometry
- The six-end satin that does exist — weaves
- Water tells two fibres apart — mechanics and drape
- Why felting needs water — after the loom
- A seersucker is made at the loom — weaves
- Wetting moves a cloth to another locus — setting and geometry
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
- A thread is gripped where it turns — what cloth is
- Two coefficients, not one — what cloth is
- A figured cloth has a step in its surface — pattern and colour
- What stops a knit extending — knits and other structures
- A flattened thread is a record of a force — mechanics and drape
- Peirce and Kemp are one cloth at two moments — setting and geometry
- The criterion gets a force — compound and figured cloths
- The stiffness with no lower bound — mechanics and drape
- Why agitation helps a cloth relax — after the loom
- A calender spends the compression for good — after the loom
- How far a cut edge frays — cloth doing a job
- The cloth that was called impossible — setting and geometry
- The relaxed cloth's contact force — mechanics and drape
- A float presses on nothing — weaves
- The half of the beat-up that is all zone — setting and geometry
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
- Every crossing is a force — what cloth is
- A thread is held one crossing at a time — what cloth is
- A rectangular block is not half a rule — pattern and colour
- A knit is soft because it bends — knits and other structures
- A yarn's stiffness is a bracket, not a number — mechanics and drape
- What else the relative origin decides — pattern and colour
- The crimp ratio is not a measurement — setting and geometry
- What the shed costs, in newtons — mechanics and drape
- The blow that sets the pick — setting and geometry
- The locus gets a force — mechanics and drape
- A cloth relaxes until its threads stop pushing — after the loom
- A pick density is a force budget — setting and geometry
- What holds a tuft in, in newtons — compound and figured cloths
- A seam slips before it breaks — cloth doing a job
- What combining two weaves reaches — 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
- Four ways to write a weave down — what cloth is
- A figure is not a stripe — pattern and colour
- The shed is an extension — mechanics and drape
- What a figure costs the loom — pattern and colour
- A fashioned edge has a quantised angle — knits and other structures
- A woven outline is a staircase — pattern and colour
- The back shaft works hardest — mechanics and drape
- A figure is harder on its warp — mechanics and drape
- A tube can only be shaped by its loop — knits and other structures
- The reed is not the sett — setting and geometry
- The setts a loom can reach — setting and geometry
- Coated is a state — after the loom
- The harness has a depth — compound and figured cloths
- A coated cloth fails at its holes — cloth doing a job
- The three basic weaves do not generate the rest — 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
- How many layers a draft can have — what cloth is
- A cloth extends by moving its crimp — mechanics and drape
- A stripe is a partition of the warp — pattern and colour
- A check is two stripes and a tartan is one — pattern and colour
- Pulled both ways, only one can give — mechanics and drape
- A cloth's Poisson ratio is not a material's — mechanics and drape
- A second bed changes what a float is — knits and other structures
- Does a double jersey hang together — knits and other structures
- The sett decides how much, not how high — setting and geometry
- A tube and two cloths are the same draft — compound and figured cloths
- How high a cloth wicks — cloth doing a job
- The constants do not compose — after the loom
- Where a stitch can hide — compound and figured cloths
- A cord is a stripe with no colour in it — weaves
- Wicking is slower along a crimped thread — cloth doing a job
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
- A cloth cannot carry a push — mechanics and drape
- Watered silk is a beat — pattern and colour
- What a repeat repeats — what cloth is
- Knit, tuck and miss — knits and other structures
- The nodes a drape test throws away — mechanics and drape
- The reed leaves its own mark — pattern and colour
- What a tuck costs — knits and other structures
- The float in a knit — knits and other structures
- Twist is one angle — setting and geometry
- Twist and the twill line — setting and geometry
- What a fabric weighs — setting and geometry
- A honeycomb gets its cells in the wash — weaves
- Where the heddles go — compound and figured cloths
- A crepe cannot be structureless — weaves
- A hole with nothing crossing — weaves
15 August 2026
15 essays on cloth doing a job
- The crimp is the price of being cloth — cloth doing a job
- A fabric to fill and a fabric to load — cloth doing a job
- A tow is not a yarn — cloth doing a job
- The third index is not a repeat — cloth doing a job
- The hole between four threads — cloth doing a job
- A filter cloth has two jobs — cloth doing a job
- An inflated cylinder wants an unbalanced cloth — cloth doing a job
- The angle a hose wants — cloth doing a job
- A membrane is cut smaller than it is — cloth doing a job
- The bias cut and the selvedge — cloth doing a job
- A hemisphere costs one full turn — cloth doing a job
- What holds a thread in a seam — cloth doing a job
- The stitch that weakens the seam — cloth doing a job
- A cloth does not mind a hole — cloth doing a job
- A tear stops where the grip is — cloth doing a job
13 August 2026
15 essays on after the loom
- What comes off the loom is not the cloth — after the loom
- Relaxation is the crimp coming back — after the loom
- Why the warp shrinks more — after the loom
- A cloth cannot shrink past its own crimp — after the loom
- Pre-shrinking is a subtraction done in advance — after the loom
- The cloth gains weight by losing size — after the loom
- The ratchet that makes wool felt — after the loom
- Milling holds the cloth a second time — after the loom
- Shrink-resist is one number — after the loom
- Calendering is the cloth arriving at the other model — after the loom
- Mercerising is a packing factor — after the loom
- Only a float can be raised — after the loom
- Raising spends the cloth's strength — after the loom
- A knit's dimensions come from its loop — after the loom
- A dimension without a state — after the loom
11 August 2026
15 essays on compound and figured cloths, what cloth is, pattern and colour and weaves
- The harness does not grow — compound and figured cloths
- What a dobby stores — compound and figured cloths
- A jacquard is every end its own shaft — compound and figured cloths
- What the matrix cannot say — what cloth is
- A damask is its own complement — compound and figured cloths
- How many cloths are there — pattern and colour
- Pile is a third thread system — compound and figured cloths
- How a tuft is held — compound and figured cloths
- Corduroy is a cut float — compound and figured cloths
- Terry needs two beams — compound and figured cloths
- Velvet is cut apart — compound and figured cloths
- Leno is not a matrix — compound and figured cloths
- What holds a pick in — compound and figured cloths
- How many shafts a draft needs — weaves
- The criterion cannot see friction — compound and figured cloths
10 August 2026
12 essays on mechanics and drape, what cloth is, setting and geometry, knits and other structures and weaves
- A drape coefficient is one number for a directional thing — mechanics and drape
- Every cloth there is, at four by four — what cloth is
- The weave decides the sett, and two models disagree about it — setting and geometry
- What a second guide bar is for — knits and other structures
- Where the cover factor comes from — setting and geometry
- Why satin shines — weaves
- What crimp interchange actually conserves — setting and geometry
- Floats and abrasion — weaves
- Does a loose weave tear better — weaves
- Designing to a float limit — weaves
- Which satins are worth weaving — weaves
- How many twills a repeat admits — 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
- Plain, twill and satin — weaves
- The bias is a mechanism — mechanics and drape
- The loop — knits and other structures
- Thread count is not quality — setting and geometry
- Weaves as plane patterns — pattern and colour
- A fabric is a structure, not a material — what cloth is
- Colour and weave — pattern and colour
- Crimp, and why cloth narrows when it is pulled — setting and geometry
- The draft is a matrix — what cloth is
- The float decides — weaves
- The locking angle — mechanics and drape
- Why stockinette curls — knits and other structures
- Does it hang together — what cloth is
- How close can threads be set — setting and geometry
- Ravel, fray and run — knits and other structures
- The diagonal is not a thread — pattern and colour
- There is no satin on six ends — weaves
- Why clothes need darts — mechanics and drape
- Bending stiffness and the drape coefficient — mechanics and drape
- Braids and the third thread system — what cloth is
- Interlacings and firmness — weaves
- The seventeen groups a draft can have — pattern and colour
- The yarn count systems, and why there are several — setting and geometry
- Warp knitting, which is a different thing entirely — knits and other structures
- Colour and weave as a two-colour problem — pattern and colour
- Nonwovens, and what holds them together instead — what cloth is
- Peirce against the racetrack, measured — setting and geometry
- Rib and interlock — knits and other structures
- Shear locking in a composite preform — mechanics and drape
- Twill direction, and how it is named — weaves
- Balance, and what an unbalanced cloth does — setting and geometry
- Broken and herringbone twills — weaves
- Why a knit recovers and a woven does not — knits and other structures
- Backed and stitched constructions — weaves