And if you are new around here, Welcome! These emails are my way of sharing ideas, drafts and general know-how with fellow weavers and those who are curious about weaving. Every month or two I will also share news about what I'm up to in my own studio or even - once we get back to that - out in the wide world. Anyway, I hope I'm not the only one to get off to a rather slow start in 2021. I'm startled to realise that this is my first email series of the year and the cherry tree outside my window is already shedding its blossom.

For this series I've decided to focus on liftplans. For some of you this may sound like old news; others of you may be wondering what a liftplan is (in which case you won't have very long to wait to find out!); or perhaps you may know perfectly well what it is, but be a little sceptical about what a liftplan has to offer you. 

As a way of recording information about weaves, weaving drafts are both ingenious and concise. However, the variety of forms that they take can be quite confusing. 

A lot of weaving literature originates in North America, where floor looms with treadles are the norm and weavers need to know which shafts to tie to which treadles before they can start to weave. Those who don't weave on this type of loom nonetheless learn to read tie-ups and treadlings because that is what is on offer. Certainly that was the format I first encountered and learned to interpret, though I didn't have any treadles to think about on my 4-shaft table loom.

However, liftplans have considerable value, and not just for table and dobby loom weavers. As the most basic of drafting formats, they are also a really useful way to think about the weaves we want to construct. 

If you want to have access to the full range of weaving literature…

If you want to design your own drafts and projects…

If you are interested in how looms and weave structures work…

these are all excellent reasons for getting to know liftplans.

Let's start by addressing the crucial question:

A liftplan is… a plan which indicates to the weaver which shafts they need to lift. It really is that simple.

The following liftplans are all the same. They record a balanced twill progression. Reading from the top down, the first row instructs the weaver to raise shafts 1 and 2; the second row, shafts 2 and 3; and so on.

A liftplan is not always read from the top down; sometimes it is read from the bottom up. If you're looking at a liftplan in a book, it's a good idea to check for a key or a guide to make sure you have understood the author's intentions.

If it is read from the bottom up, the liftplan matches the sequence you will actually create on the loom as you weave, since you will be building up the cloth away from your body.

Sometimes, though, liftplans may be written horizontally like a tie-up. We can spot the difference because (i) there is no treadling and (ii) a liftplan will not necessarily consist of unique combinations of shafts.

There's one small anomaly in the world of liftplans which I should mention. If you weave on a sinking-shed loom, then a liftplan is really a lowerplan. The language happens to favour shafts which rise over those which sink, but the principles are the same. I'll come back to this topic - different loom types and ways of interpreting liftplans - later on.

That's the basic framework, then. For the purposes of this series, I will be writing my liftplans vertically and from the top down. 

I'll be back next time with some examples of liftplan-based thinking. And if you have any questions about liftplans, you know where I am.