Calder Plain

One over, one under. Plain weave has the most interlacings possible for a given sett, which makes it the firmest and most stable binding available and the reason it has outlived every fashion in cloth. There is nowhere for a thread to move.

Calder uses that firmness to carry a shot colour. The warp is dyed with madder root, the weft is left undyed, and because plain weave shows warp and weft in equal measure the eye never resolves either as the colour of the cloth. Face on, it reads as a warm terracotta. At a shallow angle it goes noticeably paler as the oat weft catches the light. Hung as a blind against a window it changes twice a day.

Madder is a living dye and we do not correct it. Between dye lots there is a shift of a half-tone or so; if you are ordering for a scheme that must match later, take the whole quantity from one lot and tell us the drop so we cut it in sequence.

At 215 gsm it is a light cloth — it will make a shirt, a blind, a cloth for a long table. It is not upholstery, and we will say so if you ask us to sell it as such.