Why houndstooth is not a pattern

Ask most people what houndstooth is and they will describe a shape: a broken check with four little legs. Ask a weaver and you get a colour order and a structure, because that is all it has ever been.

Thread four dark ends and four light ends, repeated, on an ordinary 2/2 twill. Weave with the same four-and-four in the weft. The twill steps one shaft per pick, so as the colour blocks in the warp meet the colour blocks in the weft they are always offset by one — and the diagonal float drags the corner of each block into its neighbour. The legs are those dragged corners.

This is why we describe the cloth on this site with a draft. The draft is causal: it is the instruction the loom follows, and the pattern is a consequence of it. A photograph of houndstooth is a record of the consequence, and it will not tell you what happens when you change the repeat to two-and-two, or take the colour out of the weft, or move to a 3/1 tie-up. The draft will.

It also explains something people find surprising: houndstooth was invented many times, in places that had no contact with one another. It was not passed around. It is simply what four-and-four does on a twill, and any weaver who tries that colour order will find it.