Next Crackle Project (Corrected)

Why did I change my mind? Why am I putting off the silk warp that I have done so much dye sampling for?

Part of this is, I believe, an unwillingness to get back to 60/2 silk. Much as I love it, it is fine thread and, while rewarding to work with, great patience is required in the dyeing and the warping. What follows may be really an excuse.

Anyway, I was checking out what Zielinski has to say about crackle. I knew he had some thoughts about getting more than four blocks out of only four shafts. So I dug out my Volume 8 of his Master Weaver series. There he explains how he has developed an 8-block crackle threading from something called a double diagonal twill. He discusses this particular twill in a volume of the Master Weaver series that I do not have. But he does here give us the threading for that structure:



Here it helps to remember that crackle threading is based on a point twill. Here are the usual four units but without the accidentals. The point twill basis is obvious here.



The point twill basis is not obvious in the double diagonal twill, but when he combines these units to create crackle blocks, the relationship to point twill becomes much clearer. And here are the individual 8 crackle blocks, again without the accidentals. Somehow it did not come through very clear but it is readable.



I have clearly left out much of Zielinski's thinking process here. What he is doing is joining the threads of the double diagonal twill threading in such a way that crackle blocks are created. Looking at the first threading unit on the left, he has joined together the first three threads of the double diagonal twill threading so that it forms one block. In other words he has put together first 1 and 4 and then he has put together 4 and 2. But that would create an impossible threading: 1,4,4,2. To correct this he has reversed the 4 and the 2. The resulting threading block is then 1,4,2,4. To read more of his explanations, check out pages 47ff in volume 8 of the Master Weaver series. One of the places this series is available, by the way, is Camilla Valley Farms.

And here is the threading I am going to use. It is nothing fancy. It is just each of the threading blocks repeated three times.


I will repeat this group of threads three times.

I am really excited to see the weaving possibilities for this threading. There will be issues, because no plain weave is possible. But I think exploring this will be fun.