Summary: Weaving drafts are diagrams explaining how to weave a particular textile on inkle looms, rigid heddle looms, table looms, floor looms, or dobby looms.
Weaving drafts visually explain how to set up a loom for a weave structure or a particular project. You can find them all over the Internet, in weaving books and magazines, and in many of the free projects on this site. Drafts can look quite different, depending on the type of weaving involved. But they all provide the same information: how to warp the loom and how to weave on it.
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Terms in Weaving Drafts
This glossary relates to weaving drafts specifically. Find basic weaving terms here.
- balance: a section at the beginning or end of the threading or treadling that makes a woven pattern symmetrical
- direct tie-up: a type of loom where each shaft is controlled by a single lever (table loom) or treadle (floor loom); to move more than one shaft, work more than one lever or treadle
- direct warping: a technique for warping a rigid heddle loom using a warping peg
- drawdown: an optional part of any draft that shows the woven fabric
- indirect warping: a technique for warping a rigid heddle loom or shaft loom that involves warp chains
- lift plan: an optional part of a shaft weaving draft, combining the tie-up and treadling; shows how to work levers or treadles connected to only one shaft at a time
- profile draft: an abbreviated alternative to a thread-by-thread draft for the most common block weave structures
- repeat: a section in the threading or treadling marked with brackets and the number of times to repeat the bracketed area; used to save space in printed drafts
- rising shed: a loom where the shafts go up from the action of a treadle or lever
- sinking shed: a loom where the shafts go down from the action of a treadle or lever
- skeleton tie-up: a variation of the tie-up in a shaft weaving draft where each treadle controls just one shaft; shows how to work the treadles in combinations to control multiple shafts—in other words, how to weave as if you're using a direct tie-up loom
- thread-by-thread draft: the "typical" weaving draft that shows how to warp every end and how to weave every pick of weft
- threading: an essential part of any draft that shows how to warp the loom
- tie-up: an essential part of a shaft weaving draft; it shows how to connect shafts to treadles; combined with the treadling, it shows how to weave the fabric
- treadling: an essential part of a shaft weaving draft; combined with the tie-up, it shows how to weave picks for the fabric
- tromp as writ: a notation used instead of the treadling in a shaft weaving draft (to save space); the threading gets turned 90 degrees and used as the treadling
- use tabby: a notation used in the treadling of a shaft weaving draft, for patterns with background weft and pattern weft; the treadling shows only pattern picks (to save space), so the weaver has to alternate pattern picks with plain weave picks and the background weft
- warp color order: an optional part of any draft that indicates a color pattern for the warp ends; can be combined with the threading
- weft color order: an optional part of a draft that indicates a color pattern for the weft; can be combined with the treadling
- WIF: Weaving Information File, a universal file format created and editable by weaving design programs
Reading Inkle Weaving Drafts
Inkle drafts used for warp-faced bands show the number of warp threads, whether the threads are heddled or not, and the color patterning.
Here's a simple example we made for a hanging tab on towels. You can see the two colors of warp yarn at the bottom. The two rows at the top show that you'll need 12 heddled warp ends and 12 un-heddled ends in a particular warp color order. Heddled warp ends are always shown on top.
For another project, the Inkle Band Woven Chair Seat, we drew the draft like this:
Because this draft was so wide, the key indicated the number of threads for each color.
An even more useful draft for the chair seat bands came from the free Raktres editor. It follows the conventions above, with some extras. At the upper left, it gives colors and number of threads. The warp color order appears twice:
- On the left side, all threads are numbered and shown in color. Heddled threads are shown in the left column, open threads in the right. Scroll down to the full view of this draft, and you'll see the numbers starting from the bottom with a red line marking the center thread.
- At the top, the warp ends appear as colored lozenges, with the heddled ends in the top row.
Then a drawdown takes up most of this draft. It too uses colored lozenges to mimic the woven band. Drawdowns show how a woven fabric will look, pick by pick, as it's woven. In Raktres drafts, you can even set the weft color, which only shows at the selvedges.
The Raktres editor is a great way for inkle weavers to design their own patterns and share them. If you type in the URL or follow the QR code below, you can open and edit this chair band color pattern for yourself.
All of these drafts show exactly how to warp an inkle loom for a plain weave warp-faced band.
Notice how efficiently these drafts function, with relatively few words. Weavers from any language tradition could figure them out if they understood what a draft shows and recognized the Arabic numerals.
Reading Rigid Heddle Weaving Drafts
The "default" fabric for rigid heddle and inkle weaving is plain weave (warp-faced for inkle bands, closer to balanced for rigid heddle textiles). Weavers can use various techniques for special effects or other weave structures on a rigid heddle loom. But typically color and/or yarn choice overshadow every other design element in rigid heddle weaving.
For any fabric that involves more than one color or yarn, a rigid heddle pattern can use diagrams for setting up the colors/yarns in the warp and weft. These diagrams often look just like a thread-by-thread draft for a 2-shaft loom, with a grid for threading or warp color order running horizontally and a grid for weft color order running vertically.
Instructions for warp color order explain how to warp the rigid heddle for a particular color pattern. The designer might use letters, as Anne Sammons did for her Gather Placemats. Here weavers can choose any two yarns or colors.
You can see a repeat and a balance in this diagram. Weaving patterns (should) always list the total number of warp ends. Repeats, marked with brackets, reduce the amount of space needed for the diagram. A balance makes a pattern symmetrical.
This project uses color in a symmetrical pattern, so you can thread the rigid heddle from left to right or right to left.
To warp from left to right, thread the balance once (6 threads), then the repeat (8 threads) 13 times, for a total of 110 warp ends. Or you could work right to left, threading the repeat 13 times and then the balance. It also doesn't matter if you warp directly with a warping peg, or indirectly with warp chains. Just make sure you always follow the diagram in one direction!
For Barbara Stucke's Striped and Checked Towels, the diagram has colored squares to indicate warp color order. You'll also see a balance on the left, a repeat in the middle, and a balance on the right. Again, you can work from either side of the rigid heddle as you warp, because the color pattern is symmetrical.
Sometimes a rigid heddle pattern will indicate warp color order in a table, especially if the designer recommends indirect warping from warp chains. Malynda Allen did this for her Triple Stripe & Spot Lace Linen Towel Set, which also has a repeat and a balance:
Any rigid heddle textile can also be made on a shaft loom (because a rigid heddle loom is essentially a two-shaft loom). The warp color order diagram for Malynda Allen's Log Cabin Napery was written for both kinds of looms. This diagram has a repeat in the middle.
Changes in weft colors or yarns can use the same kind of diagram, usually oriented vertically because that's what you see as you weave. Here's the weft color order for Gather Placemats, again with a repeat and a balance:
A more complicated project like Log Cabin Napery might include a schematic used together with the weft color order.
- In the tie-up section, you can see columns for heddle down and heddle up. In each row, the black box means "do this": in the top row, weave with heddle up and in the bottom row, heddle down.
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The treadling section works exactly the same way—even though a rigid heddle loom doesn't have treadles! Here the green and cream colored squares indicate what yarn to use.
- Work the first hem and border with a single strand of green yarn.
- Work the 15 picks of the log cabin pattern, changing yarns and colors as shown in the treadling.
- Work the center part of the napkin, going back to a single strand of green.
- Work the log cabin pattern again.
- Work the border and then the hem again.
You can also make your own drawdowns and project schematics, if they're not provided. Many weavers find it helpful to work out all the measurements for hems, fringe, etc. before they warp the loom. Creating drawdowns will help you understand different weave structures.
Reading Thread-by-thread Drafts for Shaft Loom Weaving
Thread-by-thread drafts are the ones you'll see most often in the weaving world, especially for textiles with simpler weave structures. As the name suggests, these drafts lay out the whole fabric, warp end by warp end and weft pick by weft pick.
Weavers have relied on these "typical" drafts for centuries—see Kate Nartker's reconstruction of fabrics from a family receipt book handwritten between 1708 and 1710. We can draw them out on graph paper, in spreadsheet programs, or in weaving design software like TempoWeave. There's even a universal file type, called a WIF (Weaving Information File) that all design software can read. The magazine Handwoven often supplies WIFs for its projects so you can download the draft and play with it on your computer.
A thread-by-thread draft has at least three elements, drawn in three separate grids. North American drafts usually place the elements in particular places:
- Threading at the upper left—may include warp color order, repeats and/or balances.
- Tie-up at upper right.
- Treadling at lower right—may include weft color order, repeats, balances, "use tabby" or "tromp as writ".
- If there's a drawdown of the woven fabric, it appears at lower left.
Drawdowns do not provide information about warping or weaving; they help the weaver visualize interlacements and color patterning. The other three elements work together, explaining in order how to create a specific fabric.
draft from Melissa Ludden Hankens' Pants for Baby
Notice how the threading, tie-up, and treadling form an L shape. Drafts from different places or times might move the elements within the L. But the threading will always be horizontal—as though you're looking at the shafts from the front of the loom. The treadling will always be vertical, and the tie-up will always appear where the threading and treadling meet.
At this point, you may prefer a quick video overview from Jane Stafford, founder of Jane Stafford Textiles. This video from her Youtube channel covers all the basics in less than 20 minutes, with clear explanations that apply to many weaving situations on many shaft looms.
Ready for a deep dive? Working on an unusual loom? Eager to learn about all the exceptions? Read on for all the variations on basic thread-by-thread draft. You'll find information on profile drafts in a separate post.
1. Threading
Always start with the threading grid: it tells you at a glance whether your loom can weave the fabric as shown in the draft. The number of rows equals the number of shafts you'll need for that textile.
If you want to weave the Pants for Baby fabric shown above, and your loom has only two shafts, the threading above simply isn't possible. (There are workarounds for some fabrics, with a different threading.) You could weave Malynda Allen's Log Cabin Napery, since the threading has two rows. Let's look again at Log Cabin Napery, interpreting it this time for a shaft loom. Everything circled in red was added for readers' convenience, since the project could be made with a rigid heddle or a shaft loom.
A third draft, for Jane Patrick's Luncheon Napkin Fabric, was generated by weaving design software. Can you identify the threading grid? How many shafts do you need for this textile?
Threading grids can use different symbols, including slashes, dots, or numbers (for the shaft number). Jane Patrick wove her Broken Twill Fabric from the following draft—the numbers indicate which shaft to thread.
Although our examples look very different, all threadings follow the same rules, telling you how to warp the loom.
- Each row is a shaft/harness. The row at the bottom shows the shaft closest to the front of the loom (shaft 1). The row at the top shows the shaft farthest from the front (shaft 2 for Log Cabin Napery, shaft 4 for the other two drafts).
- Each column is a warp end. Read this grid starting at the right side and working your way to the left. You can thread the heddles from either direction, but you need to interpret the threading from right to left.
Color information may or may not appear in the threading. Pants for Baby doesn't include it. Log Cabin Napery has colored squares and a key to indicate warp color order. Luncheon Napkin Fabric has colored squares above the threading (read right to left) and a table for warp color order (read left to right) so that you can wind warp chains conveniently.
warp color order for Luncheon Napkin Fabric
Finally, you'll often see repeats and balances in the threading. Repeats, marked with a bracket, save space on a printed draft. A balance adds symmetry to the woven design.
- Pants for Baby has no repeats marked (though the threading does repeat).
- Log Cabin Napery has a 2-thread repeat in the middle, repeated 49 times; it also gives thread counts for each design motif so you don't have to count each square.
- Luncheon Napkin Fabric has a repeat and a balance, shown in the threading and the warp color order. Reading the threading from right to left, and the warp color order from left to right, you can see the repeat of 62 warp ends and then the balance of 31 ends. Here the warp color order gives thread counts for each color.
Once you're comfortable interpreting the threading, you know exactly how to thread warp ends in the correct color pattern on the correct shafts. It doesn't matter what warping method you choose—you'll always read the threading in the same way.
2. Treadling
The treadling grid in a weaving draft explains how to weave the fabric, pick by pick. It follows many of the same rules as the threading grid, but it runs vertically.
- Each column is a shaft or combination of shafts, as indicated by the tie-up. Always read the columns from left to right: the leftmost column is the tied-up treadle farthest to the left on your loom. If your loom has more treadles than the draft calls for, you can choose which treadles you'll use for your weaving comfort. (We'll come back to this later when we explore the tie-up.)
- Each row is a weft pick. Most often, treadling grids are read top to bottom. Schacht has published treadlings that read bottom to top, because this is how the fabric appears on the loom; you'll see an arrow pointing you in the right direction.
Treadling grids can have repeats, balances, and weft color order. You might also see different sections within the treadling, as in Sienna Bosch's Morning Frost Drawstring Bag. Here there's a section showing the picks for plain weave, and a section for a pattern sequence. Written directions and/or a schematic tell you when to treadle each section and how many picks to work.
There are two other notes you might see for the treadling: "tromp as writ" and "use tabby."
- "Tromp as writ" replaces the treadling—the pattern draft will omit the vertical part of the L shape. It's an old-fashioned way of saying "treadle as written," or use the written-out threading as the treadling. To weave, turn the threading 90 degrees clockwise and line it up under the tie-up. Work the re-oriented threading from top to bottom. Many weavers find it convenient to re-write the threading vertically on graph paper.
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"Use tabby" is much more common, as it appears for any weave structure with a background weft and a pattern weft, such as overshot, monk's belt, or summer and winter. For these supplementary weft fabrics, there's a background fabric, usually worked with fine yarns, in plain weave, also known as tabby. The pattern weft, worked in thicker yarns, sits on top of the tabby background.
This fabric, from Betty Paepke's Block-Patterned Americana Pillow, shows the weave structure very clearly. There are two warp yarns, a fine one in white and a thicker one in blue. The same yarns, along with a thick rust yarn, were also used as weft. A background weft pick between each pattern weft pick gives the fabric its structure.
3. Tie-up
The last grid in a weaving draft, the tie-up, is simultaneously the most important and the most complicated to explain. It's important because the tie-up tells you how to make the shed with your loom's shafts. It's complicated because looms have changed over the centuries that weavers have written out drafts, so conventions for writing the tie-up have also changed. Fortunately, once you understand how the grid works, it's easy to adapt any tie-up to suit your weaving situation.
A quick note about shafts/harnesses: Whenever a shaft moves up or down, its threaded heddles move in the same direction to create a shed. Not sure what kind of loom you've got? Press a treadle or flip a lever, and watch what happens to the attached shaft(s).
- For all but one jack loom, all table looms, and all dobby looms currently on the market, shafts move up when the weaver presses a treadle or flips a lever. These looms are called rising shed looms.
- Louët David looms, all counterbalance looms, and all countermarche looms are called sinking shed looms. Although the David is a jack loom, pressing a treadle lowers the connected shaft(s). On counterbalance and countermarche looms, the "working" shaft(s) go down and their paired shafts go up. You can learn more from Nicky Crane's excellent discussion of these differences and how they affect weaving.
The shed's direction matters because weaving drafts were first written and published for sinking shed looms. After jack and table looms became popular in the US, magazines and pattern books marked the tie-up for rising shed looms. Whenever possible, check the source of your draft!
- If a book or magazine comes from Europe or was published in the US before the 1930s, assume a sinking shed. Marguerite Porter Davison marked her tie-ups for sinking sheds in A Handweaver's Pattern Book.
- A tie-up with Xs indicates sinking sheds, where Os indicate rising sheds, according to Janet Dawson.
- Recent books like A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns and A Handweaver's Pattern Directory explain the symbols used in the tie-up for rising shed looms.
- If your weaving software doesn't allow you to choose the shed direction, it probably prints drafts for rising sheds.
- If the draft doesn't have a key for its symbols or doesn't refer to the shed's direction, assume a sinking shed.
What happens if you accidentally tie up a rising shed loom from a sinking shed tie-up? A lot of the time, nothing—many fabrics have symmetrical weave structures. The diagonals on a 2/2 twill might go in the opposite direction from what you expected. For weave structures with a clear "right" side and "wrong" side, you'll see the wrong side on top as you weave. If your sample doesn't look correct, simply switch the tie-up and sample some more.
Tying up multiple shafts per treadle
Let's start with the tie-up from Luncheon Napkin Fabric. For this draft made in Fiberworks, the black boxes in the tie-up and treadling refer to shafts that must be lifted on a rising shed loom. Imagine that you've already warped the shafts on a typical jack loom, following the threading. Now you'll connect multiple shafts to each treadle, following the tie-up. It can help to write in treadle numbers above the tie-up, as shown here in red.
Choose four treadles on your loom. (You'll leave all the other treadles unconnected. This tie-up has space for 6 treadles, but two of the columns are blank.)
- Treadle 1, farthest to the left: connect shafts 1, 4.
- Treadle 2: connect shafts 1, 2.
- Treadle 3: connect shafts 2, 3.
- Treadle 4, farthest to the right: connect shafts 3, 4.
When you're ready to weave, look at the first row of the treadling and follow the marked square up to the treadle number. Reading the treadling from top to bottom, your first 10 picks using the white yarn would look like this:
- treadle 3
- treadle 1
- treadle 3
- treadle 1
- treadle 3
- treadle 1
- treadle 2
- treadle 1
- treadle 3
- treadle 4
After 31 picks with white weft, you'd switch to the dark blue weft for two picks:
- treadle 1
- treadle 3
Then switch to light blue weft:
- treadle 1
- treadle 3
- treadle 1
- treadle 3, etc.
What if you wanted to weave this textile on a sinking shed loom? If you don't want to work with the "wrong" side of the fabric on top, use the empty squares to tie up. The table below compares tie-ups for Luncheon Napkin Fabric three kinds of looms:
|
Rising shed, tied up once |
Sinking shed, tied up once (Louët David) | Sinking shed, tied up twice (countermarche, counterbalance) |
| treadle 1 connects shafts 1, 4 | treadle 1 connects shafts 2, 3 |
treadle 1: shafts 2, 3 go up; shafts 1, 4 go down |
| treadle 2 connects shafts 1, 2 | treadle 2 connects shafts 3, 4 |
treadle 2: shafts 3, 4 go up; shafts 1, 2 go down |
| treadle 3 connects shafts 2, 3 | treadle 3 connects shafts 1, 4 |
treadle 3: shafts 1, 4 go up; shafts 2, 3 go down |
| treadle 4 connects shafts 3, 4 | treadle 4 connects shafts 1, 2 |
treadle 4: shafts 1, 2 go up; shafts 3, 4 go down |
Although the Luncheon Napkins Fabric features just one treadling sequence, it's very common for textiles to have multiple sequences. You'll read the tie-up and treadling grids in the same way, making use of the brackets as set up for the Morning Frost Drawstring Bag.
The project instructions tells you to weave 5" in plain weave, then 1/4" in bird's eye, then 1/4" in plain weave, and so on, changing weft colors for different sections. Starting at the bottom of the plain weave sequence (notice the direction of the arrow), alternate between treadles 3 and 4 for 5". Then for the bird's eye pattern (again starting at the bottom), weave the following 10-pick sequence:
- treadle 1
- treadle 2
- treadle 1
- treadle 2
- treadle 3
- treadle 1
- treadle 2
- treadle 1
- treadle 2
- treadle 4
A draft that says "use tabby" will show the tie-up and treadling for the two tabby picks. Often the tie-up will place the two tabby treadles to the left or right of the pattern treadles, as in the Block-Patterned Americana Pillow shown above.
Tying up one shaft per treadle/lever
Any treadling grid assumes that you can connect a treadle to multiple shafts. However, not all looms work this way. On some floor looms and all table looms with levers, each treadle or lever can only connect to one shaft—they are direct tie-up looms. There are also weaving situations where it's necessary or better to use a skeleton tie-up. (For instance, your loom may not have as many treadles as the tie-up has columns. Susan Horton discusses skeleton tie-ups here. Madelyn van der Hoogt explains how to set up a countermarche loom for a skeleton tie-up, when it's possible at all.) In all these cases, you may need to operate more than one treadle or lever for each pick.
For direct or skeleton tie-ups, you'll use the tie-up and treadling grids by interpreting them in a different way. Instead of thinking about treadles, you'll think about shafts and shaft combinations. For each row in the treadling, follow the marked box up into its column in the tie-up, where you'll see the shafts involved.
To weave plain weave, you'll press treadles or flip levers for
- shafts 1 and 3 (second row in the treadling, second column from the right in the tie-up)
- shafts 2 and 4 (first row in the treadling, rightmost column in the tie-up)
To weave the bird's eye pattern on a rising shed loom, start at the bottom of the treadling (note the arrow pointing up) and press treadles or flip levers for:
- shafts 1, 2, 3 (leftmost column in the tie-up)
- shafts 1, 2, 4 (second column from the left in the tie-up)
- shafts 1, 2, 3
- shafts 1, 2, 4
- shafts 1, 3 (second column from the right in the tie-up)
- shafts 1, 2, 3
- shafts 1, 2, 4
- shafts 1, 2, 3
- shafts 1, 2, 4
- shafts 2, 4 (rightmost column in the tie-up)
Don't forget:
- On a direct tie-up loom with treadles, your feet will move to different treadles for every pick. In some of the picks above, you'll need to press two treadles with the same foot.
- On a table loom with levers, you have to manually lower the shafts that aren't supposed to be up. For this draft, shafts 1 and 2 are almost always up—don't forget to flip the lever when they're supposed to be down!
When you've got a draft with short treadling sequences for 4 shafts, it's not difficult to mentally convert the treadling as you weave. But when you're working with more shafts or long treadling sequences, there's an easier way: a lift plan. You can write out a lift plan on graph paper—Nicky Crane explains the process. Or you can convert a draft with design software such as TempoWeave. (All the following examples were generated with TempoWeave.)
Consider this tie-up and treadling from Gabi's Engagement Towel by Kristina Halvorsen. She designed the towel with plain weave and crackle, a weave structure that uses tabby between picks of pattern weft. Although the project only took 4 shafts, there's a lot going on—two weave structures, color changes, and multiple treadling sequences! Treadles 1 and 2 are set up for plain weave; the remaining treadles set up the pattern weft in crackle.
A lift plan basically redraws and combines the tie-up and treadling grids. You'll need a column for each shaft. Each row indicates a pick, and there may be multiple shafts in use, indicated here by colored squares. You don't need to see the tie-up to interpret the lift plan.
As its name suggests, a lift plan assumes you're raising the shafts. Reading from the top left, you see the columns numbered for shafts 1 through 4, plus an unnumbered bar indicating changes in weft colors and yarns. Here every pick appears, including the tabby picks in the crackle. For picks 1 through 12, the lift plan tells you to use the tabby weft in Natural, raising shafts 1 and 3, then 2 and 4. When you start the crackle section in row 29, you'll alternate the same crackle pick (shafts 1 and 4 with black pattern weft) with the two plain weave picks.
You can also create a lift plan without including all the tabby picks, whether you draw it or use design software. Without tabby, you could fit the towel lift plan onto one page; with tabby, TempoWeave's lift plan requires six pages.
The more shafts your pattern draft has, the more you'll love a lift plan. Imagine trying to work the following draft, for 16 shafts and 16 treadles, without a lift plan.
Pattern with tie-up and treadling
Pattern with lift plan
You can see that the tie-up and lift plan closely resemble each other, but the tie-up is only 16 rows high—the lift plan shows the entire 29-pick repeat.
There's one other reason to embrace lift plans and/or weaving design software. If you own a dobby loom, you've got access to a lot of shafts. With a computer/electronic dobby, you can create a draft in your favorite design program, then save a WIF and operate the dobby from that file. If your loom has a mechanical dobby, the lift plan might be easier to read as you set up pegs in the program bars.
Resources
Ask Madelyn: Jack Looms, https://handwovenmagazine.com/jack-looms/
Ever Wonder What WIFs Are Good For?, from Handwoven
Solving the Treadle Shortage Problem, from Handwoven
Nicky Crane, Exploring the Differences between Countermarch, Counterbalance, and Jack Looms
Nicky Crane, How to Read a Weaving Draft: A Guide for Table Loom Weavers
Janet Dawson, Converting Tie-ups
Kate Nartker, Drafting Narratives: Weaving, Sequence, and Story in the Folger Library Archive