This is the third instalment of Love the Liftplan. I'll be adding this content to the Resources Hub in due course, but in the meantime here are links to part 1 and part 2.

Last week I left you with a liftplan, promising to share two drawdowns this time. In fact, I have learned a new trick since then, so I can do better! If you click the image of the drawdown you should be able to download a wif file of the draft.

Here's the straight threading…

…and here's the point threading:

Are they what you anticipated? You'll have noticed that this liftplan was another mix of twills, and this is no accident. The combination of the simple threadings and the distinctive twill diagonals used in these drafts makes them well suited to this game of visualisation. 

Sadly, not every draft is quite as easy to read as this. But for many structures there is a distinctive pattern in the lifts that we can learn to recognise and then - the crucial part - to manipulate. 

I'm never tired of talking about huck, so let's do that now (if you're new to huck, you might want to scroll all the way down for a link to an introductory article).

Suppose I've threaded my loom for five-end huck on eight shafts, with my pattern ends arranged in point fashion on shafts 3 to 8. In other words, like this:

Huck, like other types of lace weave, is based on plain weave, and the liftplan and drawdown for plain weave need no introduction.

Let's huckify this (not - yet! - an official term, so far as I know)  by introducing some warp floats. We can make the most of our threading by arranging these in a point design.

A warp float is created simply by keeping a warp end raised, in this case for five picks. At this stage we see a #-shape in the drawdown, which is reflected in a sort of semi-# in the liftplan.

Our other option with huck is to add weft floats.

In this structural view of the cloth we see the weft as an ‘absence of warp’. Another way to think about this is to consider what is happening in the cloth. Whenever we weave weft floats on the face of the cloth, we are also creating warp floats on the back of the cloth. That is, we are keeping the same warp ends lowered for (in this case) five picks.

Adding this new design element changes the appearance of the liftplan considerably. We no longer see the horizontals of the # as clearly as we did. However the verticals which represent pattern shafts either raised (black) or lowered (white) are prominent. The five-pick rhythm of the huck half-units is also very clear.

Huck lace: floats all the way

To weave huck lace all the way across my cloth, I will need to have alternating warp and weft floats over the whole surface.

How is this reflected in the liftplan? It is divided into two distinct areas. 

Shafts 3 - 8, which make the pattern, are alternately raised and lowered for five picks at a time, creating a distinctive set of stripes.

Meanwhile, shafts 1 and 2 are consistently maintaining that plain weave rhythm - they are not going to be distracted by those partying pattern shafts, oh no.

This visual split is typical of a liftplan for a structure with ‘two kinds’ of warp ends, such as lace weaves and tied weaves. 

In huck, the warp ends on shafts 1 and 2 are the anchors for all the patterning that we create with the other shafts. Knowing this - and recognising its visual signature - gives us the basis for several different things we may want to do with our liftplan:

• Creating new designs by adding or removing the five-pick verticals from our plain weave starting point;
• Turning our liftplan into a tie-up for a floor loom or a pegplan for a dobby loom;
• Experimenting with huck, such as mixing it with other structures or weaving two layers.

We've looked at the first of these already, so I hope you'll feel encouraged to play around with a few huck liftplans! 

Next time I will consider some of the practicalities of turning a liftplan into a tie-up.