CW Day 4: The Bateman Tour, Part 2

Our second stop on the tour was the home of the Seattle Weavers Guild, where the famous Bateman notebooks are kept.

Dr. Bateman wove on an 8-shaft table loom, usually with fine threads. He was a meticulous record keeper - every warp was numbered, as was every sample woven on that warp. Drafts and cloth samples are all there in those precious notebooks. I overheard someone say "The sample numbers aren't consecutive; I'd love to see the ones he threw away."

As I perused the binders (there must have been 50 of them, all the 3-inch-ring size, filled to capacity), I was amazed by the complexity of the designs, and could scarcely believe that they were woven on so few shafts.

All the materials are kept in sealed plastic sleeves, so the photographs have some light flares in them. I'm sorry, but that's unavoidable. Click the image to display the full-size version.

A 4-shaft draft:

An 8-shaft draft:

And an absolutely amazing 8-shaft sample. The larger piece of cloth is the face; the smaller is the reverse:

Here's the draft for the sample above, which was annotated "use tabby":

By the end of the day, my brain could only repeat "disk full...disk full...disk full...!"