I just finished teaching two Saturday classes on Crackle Weave.  I had a great time, and had seven participants, who told me that they had a great time also.  I worked really hard to prepare for the class and had twelve samples for the group to work through.  I am so totally amazed at the diversity of this weave, and to think that we were able to achieve twelve completely different looks, and just on four shafts.  Each participants warped their loom with a one colour warp in 2/8 cotton, and each person wove on their own loom.  We worked the wefts in 2/8 cotton, used double for pattern weft and single for tabby weft.  Using these constants we changed treadling combinations and colours to achieve the different looks.  In Crackle Weave, there are four blocks on 4 shafts.

The profile draft for the symmetrical samples:

6A  5B  4C  3D  2A  3D  4C  5B  6A
And for the asymmetrical samples:

2D  2C  2B  3A  13D  8C  5B  3A

Sample 1:  Traditional Crackle Weave treadling, one Pattern Weft and one tabby weft

Sample 2: Classic Crackle treadling, Pattern Weft, ground weft x and ground weft y.  There is no tabby in this version.

Sample 3: Four Colours, no tabby, all colours are the same weight, and the colours are rotated as you change from one block to the next.

Sample 4:  Woven as Twill – one shuttle only, woven with a straight draw twill treadling.  You can also try this as a reversing point twill, or an advancing twill.

Sample 5: Woven on Opposites – two pattern shuttles, no tabby

Sample 6: Woven as Overshot – one pattern weft, one tabby weft

Sample 7: Woven with tabby as shadow – in this case, you have one pattern weft shot, followed by two tabby weft shots, the first tabby is the same colour as the warp and the second tabby is a contrasting colour.  You can see the pops of both the navy and the green tabby wefts peaking through.

Samples 8 and 9: Traditional Polychrome Crackle(8), and Traditional Polychrome Crackle with Colours Reversed(9) – two pattern wefts and one tabby weft – throw pattern weft one, then pattern weft two, and then tabby.  The second version has the pattern wefts reversed, so throw pattern weft two 2, then pattern weft one, and then tabby.

Sample 10 – Treadles as lace – woven with one shuttle only, same thread and same colour as warp.

Sample 11: Woven as Summer and Winter Pairs – Pattern Weft (may be more than one colour) and tabby weft.

Sample 12: Classic Crackle Treadling – fun with rotating colours – follows the same classic crackle treadling as seen in Sample 2, with Pattern weft, ground weft x, and ground weft y, no tabby.  In this case, the pattern weft stays the same, but the colours for ground weft x and ground weft y, rotate among five different colours, dropping one and adding another each time you change blocks.  An amazing variety appears as the weave does its magic, with twenty different colour effects from five colours.