For the last few years (I think I started in 2015) I have been working on a book of drafts assembled in 1775 by a Lancashire weaver named Jeremiah Fielding. Last Saturday I took delivery of over 150 copies of 'The Draughts by Jeremiah Fielding'. It is intended as a work book for weavers. There are 59 drafts but some are duplications and one or two have the draft in a mess. But over 50 remain. Of course, the drafts are in 1775 notation which is pretty incomprehensible to modern weavers. So I set to and translated every one into modern notation. There are introductory sections on the finding of the notebook and the history of the cotton industry at that time but the heart of the book are the drafts. I persuade weavers of my Guild to do one or two or even more samples from the book. and they helped gallantly. Although there were at least two aghast weavers saying indignantly 'This is double cloth'. A bit of research showed that the poor of 1775 kept themselves warm in winter by creating pockets stuffed with fleece. Because of his own samples, we realised that every one was woven in ecru cotton which shows up the texture nicely. Although some drafts have 8 to 11 shafts and those are patterned. So all the samples were woven in ecru cotton. The book is spiral bound to make the drafts easier to use.
There are 140 teeny samples in the original but they show off dyeing and wood block printing and nowhere are they traceable to a specific draft. The book has taken a long time and I reckon at least 30 Guild members helped in one way or another.
A flyer showing the front cover and the three parts of a weave called Elliot's Cord. Some of the weaves have names which I could trace and some appear nowhere on the web.
We ended up by having more data than we wanted to include and intend to publish that data on a website in the next few months as downloadable files. Two topics which will be dealt with are Jeremiah's house which still exists and we have photos and data! The other one is the usefulness of the drafts today. Several weavers were so taken with a sample (Myself included) that some lovely weaves have appeared at the Guild's Show and Tell. When everyone has finished this project we will publish them all.
There are 140 teeny samples in the original but they show off dyeing and wood block printing and nowhere are they traceable to a specific draft. The book has taken a long time and I reckon at least 30 Guild members helped in one way or another.
A flyer showing the front cover and the three parts of a weave called Elliot's Cord. Some of the weaves have names which I could trace and some appear nowhere on the web.
We ended up by having more data than we wanted to include and intend to publish that data on a website in the next few months as downloadable files. Two topics which will be dealt with are Jeremiah's house which still exists and we have photos and data! The other one is the usefulness of the drafts today. Several weavers were so taken with a sample (Myself included) that some lovely weaves have appeared at the Guild's Show and Tell. When everyone has finished this project we will publish them all.
Two photos of a weave using Jeremiah's draft and space dyed tencel.
Any one wanting to buy a copy, it with cost £12.50 plus P&P. Send me a pm.
Hello, would like to purchase a copy of your book. Please inform. Thanks, Denice
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