It's either not enough shafts or not enough treadles!

At the February meeting, one of our new members (Wendy-Marie) brought a recent copy of  Handwoven  with a two block twill draft.  She wanted to weave yardage for a Happy Coat with the body of the coat in the two block twill and have the border be plain weave without adding a separate piece of material.  Wendy-Marie's loom has 8 shafts and we assume 10 treadles.  Ingrid and I eagerly pointed out that she could use three thread twill blocks and have the plain weave border.  We went home to our respective weave programs and tried to come up with a draft for Wendy.  We forgot one important piece of the puzzle.  Treadling for two three thread twill blocks will be three picks long for each block and plain weave is two picks long. 

 

Here is Ingrid's solution.  The treadling is easy, but the border isn't plain weave except when you change from one twill block to the next.  It will work with a floating selvedge, though and it is a border treatment.

 

 

Beryl's solution.  Treadle plain weave along with the twill blocks (depressing two treadles at once).  Three picks against two is probably not going to be all that easy to remember.  If Wendy had 12 treadles, it would be a straight treadling sequence.

 

I put this problem into Tim's Treadle Reducer, but the solution also used two treadles at once and the treadling sequence was a nightmare.

 





This is the clean version for 12 treadles. 

Dear readers - do you have a better idea?   Let us know and we will post your ideas and give you credit for them!