Twill Gamp Patterns

Day 20: Nothing annoys me as much as a mistake, particularly if it's mine, and even more particularly, if it's one firmly installed in posterity. My first twill gamp had one, and I didn't spot it until it had been hanging up for several days. Obviously, it was minor, but the sheer fact of its existence offended my sensibilities. Fortunately, I had strung enough warp initially to make at least two, so I started again with the same sequencing. The photos overlap a bit, but they show twelve different treadling patterns worked over four threadings. When I reached the end of the gamp, I still had enough warp left for one towel/placemat, so I changed to emerald green and wove it entirely in my favourite combination (sixth up from the fringe, i.e., second full panel from the bottom of the center image). This one does not have any mistakes (or at least I haven't spotted any).

Well, That's Annoying!

Day 6: For as many years' weaving as I have under my belt, you might have thought I'd have woven a twill gamp at some point, but somehow I had just never managed to get around to it. I decided to remedy the situation, because a gamp is a handy thing to have around. It's rather like an index of patterns which can be accomplished with specific threadings and treadlings. In this case, I threaded for traditional bird's-eye, broken twill, rose path and regular twill. Those are the four columns. The twelve rows are a selection of the different possible treadlings from each of the four threadings. The result is 48 different patterns within the same piece of cloth (random examples on the right). By referencing the grid, I can select whichever combination catches my fancy, e.g., rose path #4 over broken twill, etc. Weavers often make plain-weave or twill gamps of colours for much the same reason: to see how they interact with each other where they combine. A pattern gamp like this is a little more complicated, though. However, as much as it pains me to admit it, I made a mistake in the last few throws of the second block up from the bottom. You can see it just below the blue horizontal stripe. I was probably tired when I did it, swapping 1/2, 1/4 for 1/4, 1/2, and did not catch the error until the finished piece was hanging on my wall. Thoroughly annoyed with myself, I've already started a second gamp on the same patterns, although in a different colour.

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.