This is going to be a really quick post with one quick example of tie-up ratios ’cause folks have been asking for help and I want to get something online before the Live Q&A tonight. I hope to have time to come back and add more exposition to this later.

The question is this: I referred to the tie-ups in the Stash Busting Weave-along Project Specs and in the Facebook group using this notation: 3-1-1-3, 2-2-2-2, 2-2-1-1-1-1, etc. Folks want to know what that means.

The numbers refer to the pattern of ups and downs (connections and not-connections) in the tie up. Usually it’s written as e.g. 3/1/1/3 or 2/2/2/2 or 2/2/1/1/1/1 but you can’t use the ‘/’ character in a filename so I’ve gotten the habit of using hyphens instead of slashes so that it doesn’t mess up URLs, filenames, etc. Another notation that’s seen sometimes is this:

This has the advantage of explicitly showing you which shafts go up and which go down, and it makes it easier to see if the total number of shafts going up and the total number of shafts going down is the same or if you’ve got an unbalanced weave that’ll show more warp on one side and more weft on the other.

But what does it actually MEAN? It’s the pattern that each treadle is tied up according to. Take the 3/1/1/3 tie-up, for instance. The first treadle of that tie-up would look like this in a draft:

Then you take that pattern and repeat it again on the second treadle, but this time starting on shaft 2. Then starting on shaft 3, and so on. Like this:

Only of course you can’t go beyond shaft 8, so you’ve got to wrap the pattern around to the bottom again, like so…

…with an end result of this:

Which is the tie-up from the Project Specs. Here are the other two tie-ups mentioned above:

If you’re using Fiberworks, there’s a nifty menu option that does this for you. Enter the first treadle of your tie-up, then go to the Tieup Menu and choose the Twill Repeat … option. A dialogue box will open that gives you some options; choose what you like, hit Apply and presto!