Thursday, October 16, 2008

SUMMER AND WINTER AND…….CRACKLE (OF COURSE)

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Leigh has been doing a marvelous job explicating the Summer&Winter weaving structure for us. It’s an important structure and interesting. It is especially useful for 4-shaft weavers. Go to her blog to read all her recent posts on the subject.

I find especially intriguing the fact that S&W treadling can be used on other threading structures as well. Overshot is one. And…..crackle (did I surprise you?!) is another. Indeed, S&W is one of my favorite treadlings for normal 4-shaft crackle. I like it better, for example, than the more usual overshot treadling (apologies to Susan).

S&W treadling is also lovely on this maddening yet delightful 8-blocks-on-4-shafts crackle (anybody got a short and useful acronym for this?).

There is just one problem with treadling crackle as S&W: it requires plain-weave(tabby picks). You can easily do this with standard 4-shaft crackle. But since there is no tabby with 8-blocks-on………crackle, one has to compromise by picking for the tabby equivalent, that treadle which produces the opposite shed to the pattern shed. But that too is impossible. Maddening?! But you can come close enough to make it work.

I really really do not like to deal with tabby picks or opposite-shed picks when I am already working with a bunch of colors and therefore with a bunch of shuttles. Adding another shuttle into the mix does not make me happy, especially when I am working with 60/2 silk.

Treadling polychrome style is for me the answer. No tabby (or opposite shed) is required. Wheww.

Still, I do like the S&W treadling…….


Related Posts:
Crackle Treadled as Summer and Winter
Crackle Treadled as Summer and Winter Continued


"Summer and Winter and…Crackle Of Course)" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 16, 2008. © 2008 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

4 comments:

Leigh said...

Thank you Peg. Do you really think my explanation is clear? I've fretted over it some because I've read too many explanations that didn't make sense. I really want to understand this well enough to be able to explain it to somene else.

I'm definitely intrigued with your crackle posts. I know that I'll get to crackle eventually, and it seems to be pushing itself further up on my to-do list.

Peg in South Carolina said...

Yes, I think your explanation is very clear. When I first tried summer and winter I was really muddled over it. I had to do it as one of the structures for a guild weaving certificate. I have not returned to it since........except indirectly as a crackle treadling!

Susan B. said...

Why apologies? I'm just embracing all these different weaving structures. And learning! Thanks to you and Leigh!

Peg in South Carolina said...

You are very welcome, Susan. I'm glad you are learning.