Anniversary Name Draft

Guild member Linda A has created an IPW 75th Anniversary Name Draft to commemorate our special celebration year! What’s a name draft, you ask?

According to Madelyn van der Hoogt in Handwoven Magazine’s January 22, 2018 Ask Madelyn column, “A name draft is an arbitrary way to create a threading draft (usually threading, though it can be used for blocks or for treadling orders, too). There are many ways to do name drafting, but one is to assign a letter to each shaft. A=1, B=2, C=3, D=4, E=1, F=2, etc., for four shafts, for example. Then you just thread the number corresponding to the letters from words or phrases. Naturally, this doesn’t necessarily give you a threading that can be used, so then you adjust. Most often name drafting is used for overshot.”

4-shaft anniversary name draft block
8-shaft anniversary name draft block

Linda used PCW Fiberworks’ name draft generator to spell out IPW 75th Anniversary using an Alphabet 1, Blocks, Star pattern. This first draft is an 4-shaft draft. Because you cannot use the Fiberworks name draft tool for 8-shaft patterns, she created a parallel threading of the 4-shaft pattern and changed the tie-up to keep the diamond pattern intact.

When you start weaving the 4-shaft pattern, delete the last weft row.  It will have two shaft-2 wefts in a row. When you finish weaving your piece, the last row should end with shaft 2, which is there for balance. The 8-shaft draft does not have that problem. Please contact Linda if you have any questions. Download the files below.