Pennine Houndstooth

This is the clearest demonstration in the catalogue of why we specify cloth as a draft rather than as a picture. The structure is an ordinary 2/2 twill. The colour order is four indigo ends and four oat ends, repeated — and exactly the same four-and-four in the weft. Nothing else is specified.

What comes off the loom is houndstooth. The broken check with its four little legs is not drawn anywhere; it is what happens when a four-end colour repeat meets a twill that steps one shaft per pick. Where dark warp crosses dark weft you get a solid block, where light meets light you get another, and the diagonal float drags the corners of those blocks into each other. The pattern is an arithmetic consequence of the interlacement, which is why weavers have arrived at it independently for several centuries.

Change the colour repeat to two-and-two and the same threading gives you a fine shepherd’s check. Take the colour out of the weft and you get a warp stripe. The loom is not reconfigured for any of it.

Woven in 2/16nm superfine lambswool at 340 gsm, Pennine is a genuine tailoring cloth: it presses, it holds a lapel roll, and it does not shine at the elbow. It also upholsters a small chair beautifully, provided you keep the check square to the frame.