Summer & Winter

I'll save us time by summarizing what I've learned about this structure so far from multiple books. It's useful for weaving in blocks, and I think for garments, bags, and upholstery where you can't afford long floats; Ali says it's great for blankets and vests. I shall amend/correct this post as I learn more; I hope you will tell me where I've gone wrong, please?

* Summer & Winter is fundamentally plain weave. This make it more forgiving than Overshot in designing coverlet-style cloth.
* It is woven with two shuttles, requiring tabby and pattern wefts.
* It creates a reversible cloth.
* It requires two shafts, usually 1 and 2, for the structure; however many shafts you have left, each one can create one block. So on an 8-shaft loom, you can have up to six blocks.
* In the first instance, they recommend warp and tabby weft yarns to be the same or similar, making the fatter/brighter/fluffier pattern weft the most visible feature of the cloth. Where/how the pattern wefts come to the fore creates the shapes/patterns in the cloth.

Threading:
Each unit has four ends, 1-n-2-n, where n is the shaft for this particular block. So, if a block uses Shaft 8, one unit consisting of four ends is threaded 1- 8- 2- 8. If another block uses Shaft 4 and is wider, say 12 ends, this is threaded 1-4-2-4, 1-4-2-4, 1-4-2-4. And so on.

Treadling:
So far, this has been the most interesting. With the same threading and tie up, but a slight changes in pattern weft treadling, you can get four different appearances. This is useful when changing the nuance of the cloth, or fine-tuning the corners of the blocks.

Example Profile Draft
4 blocks / 6 shafts

"Alternating"
The pattern weft treadling alternates.
"Birdseye" or "O"
Each unit of the pattern (black) weft creates the letter O,
while each background unit creates an X.
"X"
Each unit of the pattern (black) weft creates the letter X,
while each background unit creates an O.
"Dukagang", perhaps the most familiar?
"Dukagang" uses only one treadle for the pattern weft.

Here are some photo showing the different styles. Thank you, Dianne.

Tie-Up:
I'm guessing there is great scope for experimenting with the tie-up, but I can't think that far, so more later.

Material:
There are infinite number of interesting possibilities here. What I have in mind for the near future are are:
* Very skinny yarn for warp and tabby weft; thick, fluffy or loopy wool in pattern weft.
* Warp and pattern weft the same size but different colors, the tabby weft being very much skinner.
* Warp colors in gradation or stripes within a very narrow range on the color wheel, tabby weft in one of the colors, and pattern weft in strong contrast, perhaps complementary.

Books:
"Learning to Weave", revised edition, by Deborah Chandler, Interweave Press (Shocking to see this is in the "Almost Gone Forever" section of Interweave Store. What is going to be the new classic intro text?)
"Mastering Weave Structures", by Sharon Alderman, Interweave Press (Hardcover is "Almost Gone Forever".)
"A Weaver's Book of 8-Shaft Patterns" edited by Carol Strickler, Interweave Press
"Summer & Winter", by Donna Sullivan, Interweave Press
"Designing with Blocks" by Doramay Keasbey, AltaVista Publications

Software:
Fiberworks PCW Silver, V4.1.0.20P.
In the first instance, however, I used pencil in graph paper.