Textile Structure
how cloth is put together
Theme

The thread: The float decides

How far a thread travels on the face before it goes under is the quantity behind lustre, drape, snagging, abrasion and how close the cloth can be set. Almost nothing else has that reach.
plainfloat 1 · 8 interlacingsfirmness 1.002/2 twillfloat 2 · 16 interlacingsfirmness 0.505-end satinfloat 4 · 20 interlacingsfirmness 0.40a filled square means the warp is on the facecounted from the matrices, not from the pictures Weaves

Plain, twill and satin

Three rules, and everything else in weaving is a variation on them. What separates the three is not appearance but one trade — how often a thread changes face against how far it runs when it does not.

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

The draft is a matrix

Point paper is not a diagram of cloth. It is a grid of yes-or-no decisions about which threads to lift, which makes a weave a binary matrix and almost every question about it arithmetic.

 5-end satinwarp floats of 4weft floats of 120 markedruns measured round the repeatfloat 4 Weaves

The float decides

How far a thread runs on the face before it goes under is one number, and it sits behind lustre, drape, snagging, abrasion, tear strength and how densely the cloth can be set. Almost nothing else in the subject has that reach.

 weaveinterlacingsdensest settingplain1.0020 per inch2/2 basket0.5027 per inch2/1 twill0.6724 per inch2/2 twill0.5027 per inch3/1 twill0.5027 per inch5-end satin0.4029 per inch8-end satin0.2532 per incha geometric jamming model, circular sections, yarn diameter 1/40 inch Weaves

Interlacings and firmness

Every time a thread changes face it has to bend, and a bend takes room. That one sentence decides how densely a cloth can be set, how firm it feels, and why the two run in opposite directions.

All themes