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This article is the third installment in Jennifer Leigh's three part series on Shadow Weave. We know this is a long one—don't be intimidated! We hope you'll grab a cup of coffee or tea and settle in for this valuable lesson on designing your own Shadow Weave pattern.
Designing any project from scratch can feel daunting, and Shadow Weave can seem even more intimidating simply because of the visual complexity of the design. Keep in mind, however, that Shadow Weave is generally derived from the combination of a Twill draft and a color sequence (refer back to articles one and two on the structure itself and how to choose colors), and now we will dive into designing our own Shadow Weave project.
As we mentioned in article one, many Shadow Weave patterns are block translations of a Twill. In other words, two threads are condensed into one “block”. This “weaver’s shorthand” creates a “profile” of the overall design through a visual representation of the threads, as opposed to the individual threads themselves. In article one we translated a twill in this way using the Atwater method, by adding a light “shadow” thread on the opposite shaft from each dark twill thread, so a 1-2-3-4 twill design line became a 1-3-2-4-3-1-4-2 threading line. Below are the diagrams from that article as a refresher:
Because the threads in this method are on opposite rather than adjacent shafts, it’s difficult to “read” the draft as a series of blocks. The original draft’s shape or “profile” gets obscured because the threads are spread across the Shadow Weave draft, rather than in a line as in the original twill.
Marian Powell worked out a different method for drafting Shadow Weave patterns that keeps the main thread and its “shadow” thread next to each other. She did this by rearranging the shaft, tie-up, and treadle order so that each dark thread and its light shadow are on adjacent shafts instead of opposites. Her style makes Shadow Weave easier to draft, thread, and weave. Below is one repeat of an 8-shaft straight draw Shadow Weave showing the differences between the Atwater and the Powell styles:
As you can see, the two styles look quite different but produce the same pattern in the cloth. This article uses the Powell method because it makes block design easier. If you would like to learn more about this conversion, Rebecca Winter covers it in detail in her book: The Enigma of Shadow Weave.
The Powell method uses two 2-thread blocks for most of the draft, with 3-thread blocks at the turning points.
A and B are used for most of the draft translation. AA and BB are only used when the draft comes to a point and the profile line changes direction. A and B contain the main thread and its shadow. AA and BB may be Dark-Light-Dark or Light-Dark-Light depending on where they fall in the threading sequence.
As the first example of making a block translation let’s start with the simplest profile—an 8-shaft straight twill. Above in the last section you can refer to the draft and drawdown we are working towards creating. Below is the straight twill threading draft that is our starting point:
Since we’re converting each thread in the 8-shaft twill draft into a 2-thread block, we will use 16 threads in the Shadow Weave draft. (again, refer back to the draft above for a visual reminder of what we’re constructing with these instructions) The first four threads of the twill become the first eight threads of the Shadow Weave draft, and they look just like a straight twill threading. The only difference from a straight twill is that the warp and weft colors alternate between dark and light.
Twill thread 1 becomes Shadow Weave threads 1 & 2. Twill 2 becomes 3 & 4, Twill 3 becomes 5 & 6, and 4 becomes 7 & 8. Let’s call these Forward blocks because they lean in the direction of the twill line.
To translate the second half of the straight twill profile—threads 5-8 in the image above—we will start again on shafts 1 and 2 in the Shadow Weave draft, but the lean of each block will be Reversed. The threading of each block is 2-1, 4-3, 6-5, 8-7 rather than 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8.
Below is a diagram showing shafts 1-4 on an 8-shaft twill profile Forward, and shafts 5-8 Reversed:
For our straight twill, we will use the A blocks for the Forward section of the profile, and the B blocks for the Reversed section as below:
When we substitute the threading blocks for the letters in the diagram, the first four blocks (eight threads) are Forward and they lean in the same direction as the twill line. The last four blocks (threads 9-16) are Reversed. The Reversed blocks cross the twill line instead of following it, as below:
And when we remove the shading and colored boxes, we have created the Powell Shadow Weave version of a straight twill, as below:
The main idea here is to understand how the 8-thread, 8-shaft straight twill profile gets translated into a 16-thread, 8-shaft straight Shadow Weave draft. We’re going to look at a few more examples to help make this clearer, so keep reading and the repetition should help!
Point Twill is the next example. It’s just straight twill with a “point” or change of direction on shaft 8, and a descending line of straight twill, as below:
When we think about the Forward and Reversed regions of the profile, something interesting happens, as you can see below:
The first four blocks are Forward, the middle blocks are Reversed, and the last four blocks are Forward. It’s the same as the straight twill and its mirror image.
When we translate the profile, it looks like the straight twill example above, with one BB block in the center where the line turns, and then the mirror image of the straight twill translation on the left.
When the twill line changes direction, the blocks we use for Forward and Reversed also change:
When the twill line is ascending up and to the left, A is theForward block and B theReversed
When the twill line is descending down and to the left, B is theForward block, and A theReversed
Below is the profile with the lettered blocks:
In the diagram below we have substituted in the threading blocks, and you can see why we needed to change which blocks were used where when the twill line switched direction:
Below is the cleaned-up threading draft:
Below are drawdowns of the Point Twill and the Shadow Weave block translation of Point Twill, tromp-as-writ:
Notice how the Shadow Weave horizontal and vertical stripes replace the light and dark regions of the twill, and how the Shadow Weave drawdown has twice as many threads and picks. This is what we mean by a profile and a block translation.
On to one more example!
Finally, let’s look at the 8-shaft Wall of Troy Twill draft below, both as an 8-shaft draft (below, left) and translated into Shadow Weave (below, right):
In this example, like in the Straight Twill example, the first half of the profile is Forward and the second half Reversed. The new thing to figure out are the four Point turns. Below are the block substitutions:
And below is the Shadow Weave translation when we use those blocks in a threading draft:
Since the right half is all in the Forward section of the profile draft, the blocks all match the lean of the twill profile line. The left half of the draft is all Reversed, so all those blocks are against the lean of the twill profile line. Below is the cleaned up threading draft:
And below are the Twill Wall of Troy drawdown and its Shadow Weave translation:
Again, notice how the horizontal and vertical pinstripes in the Shadow Weave correspond to the light and dark regions in the twill used as a profile. Also notice how the feather stitching is light around some regions, and dark around others.
It will probably be helpful to look at more drafts drawn in the Powell method and identify for yourself the Forward and Reversed regions. Below are several repeats of the point twill draft, as an example:
And below are several repeats of Wall of Troy:
Now we are ready to take an existing Shadow Weave draft and analyze it into a block sequence, then change that block sequence to make a new Shadow Weave draft (and give it a little something extra!).
Something Shadow Weave can do that twill can’t is make curves with good interlacement. Below is the Shadow Weave draft of a curved shape:
And below is a closeup of the threading:
We can see that the curve is created by repeating adjacent threading blocks. Because Shadow Weave blocks are like Plain Weave in structure, it’s possible to repeat blocks in this way without creating long floats!
Next we can mark up the threading draft to find the Forward and Reversed regions, and sort out which threading blocks are used in this draft. The first and last four blocks are aligned with the lean of the profile line, and all the blocks in the center are opposed to the lean:
And we can diagram it into a simple block profile as below:
The curve (let’s call the one above a “dome”) is created by using adjacent 2-thread blocks to bend the diagonal line of a Twill down into a horizontal line in several steps. First there are two adjacent blocks, then three, then the curve changes from ascending to descending and mirrors the ascending portion, ending in a descending twill line.
We can flip the dome profile to make a “bowl” profile:
The bowl curve starts in the Reversed section of the profile, then repeats of two, three, and four adjacent blocks in the Forward section creating the curve, and it ends with a straight twill line back in the Reversed section. When we convert the bowl profile back to a threading draft, it looks like this diagram below:
When we make a drawdown of this new threading with the dome curve, below is the result:
Profile drafting and block design seem clunky and complicated at first, but once the concepts “click”, they open up a whole new world of weaving design. For instance, you can start with a sketch for a project idea like the one below:
Turn the design lines in your sketch into a profile:
And turn that profile into a drawdown:
It’s relatively straightforward to look at design source books, pick a couple drafts, and put them together into a pattern. That’s where most designers start. Being able to start with a sketched line and turn that into a pattern is a game-changer. It is possible with profiles and block design for you to make something new and completely unique!
You are probably wondering about the tie-up. Here’s the great news – all Powell Shadow Weave drafts use the same tie-up. It is a slight manipulation of a Plain Weave tie-up that creates the signature “feather stitching” differentiating it from Log Cabin.
The Powell version of the Shadow Weave tie-up has three regions. The green Plain Weave is on the top left, the blue Plain Weave on the bottom right, and a diagonal line that resembles dark and light shark’s teeth separates the two opposite Plain Weave regions.
Left to right: Odd shafts on 1, Shadow Weave, Even shafts on 1
In the drawdowns below, the threading is 8 picks of straight draw Shadow Weave, tromp as writ.
Notice that the Plain Weave tie-ups on the left and right draft create Log Cabin-style stripes. The diagonal of “sharks teeth” in the Shadow Weave tie-up gives us the feather stitching that separates the regions of vertical and horizontal stripes, and changes the blocks of pinstriping into diagonal regions..
As noted at the beginning, Atwater used a different Shadow Weave drafting system. Rebecca Winter covers the differences between the two and how to convert one to the other in her book, The Enigma of Shadow Weave.
Here is a wonderful chance to play. For treadling, tromp as writ is a great option, but try other “standard” twill treadlings (Straight, Point, Broken Herringbone, Wall of Troy) to see what you like.
We covered color selection in article two so will not repeat it here, but keep in mind that color order is critical. If the Shadow Weave effect seems to get lost when you add the tie-up and treadling, try swapping which threads are dark and which are light in EITHER the warp OR the weft. For example, The Baroque Shadow Weave Shawl is threaded dark/light, but treadled light/dark. Threadling and treadling that pattern with both thread sequences either dark/light or light/dark, creates more of a Log Cabin effect. Not all Shadow Weave requires opposite color orders in the warp vs. weft, but why that happens is a different blog for a different day!
In the meantime, experiment, enjoy, and please share your design efforts so we can see what you make!
Marion Powell: 1000 (+) Patterns In 4, 6, and 8 Harness Shadow Weaves, Robin & Russ Handweavers, 1976
Rebecca Winter: The Enigma of Shadow Weave Illuminated, Schiffer Publishing, Limited, 2023
All graphics courtesy of Jennifer Leigh.
Jennifer learned to knit, sew, and embroider before starting kindergarten, and over the years has dabbled in more or less anything that can be done with string and/or fabric. She began weaving in 2014, and now considers it her primary art form. Jennifer recently retired from a 30 year career in tech and lives in Raleigh, NC, where she is a member of the Triangle Weavers Guild. She can be found online at her blog, reddit,
and Warpsters, which she started as a passion project to build an online community for weavers to share knowledge, ideas, and creativity.
