Turned Taqueté - Four Block Profile into an 8 Shaft Draft

Turning a four block profile into an 8 shaft turned taqueté draft isn't as easy or straight forward as the two block, four shaft procedure.  First of all, when you turn a draft you are using the same number of shafts as treadles in the unturned draft.  With many four block profiles, your new turned draft will end up needed 12 or 16 shafts so you need to follow some restrictions in order to get a draft that you can weave on your eight shaft loom.

First of all, keeping your new draft to only 8 shafts only seems to work if your tie up is a 2/2 twill as in the profile below.   There may be other tie ups that work, but I  certainly didn't find any.



4 block profile

 Here is the draft translated to turned taqueté.

 

 

Threading for turned taquete eight shafts with a 2/2 twill tie up in profile
Block A 1-2-3-4
Block B 5-6-7-8
Block C 2-1-4-3
Block D 6-5-8-7

Tie up treadle (1) 1-2 5-6
treadle (2) 3-4 7-8
Blocks AB 1-3-6-8
Blocks BC 1-3-5-7
Blocks CD 2-4-5-7
Blocks AD 2-4-6-8
Alternate treadle 1 and 2 with pattern treadle.
1-P-2-P

I made numerous attempts to do color changes in the warp and use a combination of straight threadings on eight shafts.  I could get a few to look OK, but they all had color lines that looked like errors, so I'm sticking with the plan I laid out above.

Turning a Two Block Profile into Turned Taqueté (4 Shafts)

My guild (Reno Fiber Guild) is having a year long study of profile drafts and block weaves.  We kicked the subject off at our October meeting and broke into a variety of groups that will study specific block weave structures ending in April with weaving off designs on a variety of four and eight shaft looms.  Several guild members had woven four shaft turned taqueté and wanted to do more in the way of designing using that structure.  I could certainly convert a profile to taqueté and then turn the draft, but decided that it should be feasible to convert a profile to turned taqueté without going through the intermediary step.

I started with the weaving software, WeavePoint, converting profiles to taqueté, turning the drafts and analyzing the results.  I had in mind presenting something similar to Madelyn van der Hooght's diagrams that have a numerical threading, tie up configurations and treadling sequences for various block weave structures.  What I found is that once you have gone past a two block profile and given that you are turning the draft, things aren't so straight forward as they are when you are designing with taqueté.   What follows is what I have learned so far.

One of the interesting things about taqueté and its turned version is that without alternating colors (in the weft for taqueté or in the warp for turned taqueté) the draft in two colors has no apparent design.  Once you put in the alternating color sequence, the block pattern magically appears.

Along my journey, I found a couple of ways to thread the four shaft  version of turned taqueté (aka warp-faced compound tabby).  I thought I would present both of them because I can see advantages to both.

Here goes.  If you use two colors in the warp and alternate them all across the warp the threading is as follows                         

                                           Block A 1-2-3-4 
                                           Block B 2-1-4-3
                                          
If you change the color sequence at every block change you can thread
                                          Blocks A & B 1-2-3-4
                                           
The secret is that you must change the color sequence at the beginning of a new block. In other words if you have been threading red -blue,  at the beginning of a new block you will thread blue - red,until you reach the end of that block and switch back to red- blue.

Now for the Tie Up and treadling.  Since we are only dealing with two blocks and with four shafts, we must alternate the two blocks in a profile draft and the tie up that works is this.

The treadling for Block A is 1-3-2-3 and the treadling for Block B is 1-4-2-4.  That's all there is to it.

 

 

Here are two drawdowns using first  a two block threading sequence and the second using only color change on a straight draw threading to delineate the blocks.



 

 

Block A threaded 1-2-3-4 and Block B threaded 2-1-4-3

 

straight draw threading, but duplicate color sequence at block change in warp



 

The next post is changing a four block profile draft into an eight shaft draft of turned taqueté.  Hint - not all four block drafts will reduce to an eight shaft draft.  It will depend on the number of treadles you need to use because, remember, this is a turned draft.

 

Note:  One of the nicest things about blog posts is that they can be amended and updated.  After I had researched and written this post, I came upon an interesting article in Weaver's Magazine Issue 12.  The article was written by Betsy Blumenthal and it was entitled "One-Shuttle Wonderful".  This article describes the color sequence changes in the warp to get the double face cloth and the structure was called "warp-faced compound tabby.  There is simply nothing new under the weaving sun!

Umpteen Colored Towels

I have been planning my next multicolor warp since my last two worked out so well.  I wound a 9 yard towel warp for the Baby Wolf loom and spiced up the stripe sequence a bit.  Each warp stripe was two different colors in a similar value and I used 14 different colors.  The warp was gorgeous and the thought occurred to me that maybe I should quit while I was ahead - photograph it and move on.  But, I wound it on the back beam slowly with a few pesky threads that had to be combed into submission.  My first tie up was the turned taquete draft seen in a previous post.  I picked three to five different colors for the weft.  Some of them had been used in the warp -- some not.  I tried to keep to a medium value.  Dee passed on this tip to me and she learned it from Michelle Whipplinger.  "You can get by with many colors in the warp if you use a medium value weft - of any color".  Seems unlikely, but I was determined to see if I could stretch the limits of this color thing. 

I started out easy with lots of colors that were similar to the warp colors.  Then, I progressed into darker value colors of green and teal.  I brought out some really brash turqoise green and used it.  All those tag ends of cones became depleted and my best color turned out to be a pewter gray/green.  Pretty uninspiring on the cone, but it really made the reds and pinks in the warp pop.

I was having fun with the taquete weave structure, but since the threading was two blocks on an eight shaft loom, I pulled out a couple more tie ups to try. 

The first tie up gives a lovely array of color and weave effects with the two toned warp.  The second tie up has plain weave, a spot weave and two other four shaft structures.  Lots of bang for the buck.

Not every color did work on this warp.  Yellows were yucky, but perhaps a gold would have been OK.  Lighter colored weft yarns weren't all that attractive either. I didn't use too many oranges, but the ones I tried worked pretty well.  There were lots more possibilities, but I ran out of warp at nine towels.   

Turned Taquete on 8 Shafts

I wish I could remember or find the original source of this turned taquete draft so that I could give credit where credit is due. I had it tucked away in my weaving files and had been looking at it for a while thinking that it might be something fun to try. Also in the back of my mind has been using up small amounts of 8/2 and 10/2 cottons and this draft really fills the ticket in that respect.

What a joy it was to watch the complex squares change and morph into four towels and a couple of smaller pieces of yardage.

The real secret to the color symphony, seems to be value. I look at all the colors I want to use in my warp through a quilting tool called a ruby beholder and then combined two colors that were close in value for every stripe.

The next time you are looking to use up some of those pesky cones with not much yarn on them, try this draft. I have plans for a series of wool shawls using the same draft and have all the cones stacked out and ready to wind the warp. I do hope they will be as successful as the towels are.