Twill Gamp

Day 360: According to Webster's Third New International Dictionary, the word "gamp" was derived from a character' surname in Charles Dickens' "Martin Chuzzlewit," Sairy Gamp. I won't argue with Webster, although I have the feeling there is a deeper history there. How it also came to be applied to the weaver's equivalent of a sampler, I do not know (nor, apparently, does Webster, other than to suggest it was pilfered from Dickens). A gamp can be as simple as an all-over tabby weave of different colours, helpful to the weaver who wants to see how they interact with each other, or a gamp may be a sampling of different threadings and treadlings such as the one I am making here. Each of these designs is threaded through the heddles in a different fashion, for example 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4 for one pattern, then 4-3-2-1-2-3-4-1-2-1 for the next, and so on across the width of the fabric. The treadling remains the same throughout the blocks, but treadling shafts 1 and 3 raises every other thread as 1-3-1-3 in the first instance and 3-1-3-1-1 in the second, a different pattern emerges. I will change to a different treadling for the next set of squares. Thus, with careful planning, it is possible to weave multiple designs across a single width of cloth. During my years as a weaver, I had never woven a twill gamp (i.e., one based in variations of the twill pattern). I thought it would be an amusing experiment.