Oh wow, check out what we stumbled across! Exploring the diamond twill space, Matthew was inspired to try lengthening the cross floats, to emphasize the little flowers shapes that the smallest version makes. We got another magic fabric! This is a very striking result with a flat(ter) side and a bumpy(ier) side, one of which is very squares, and the other very diamonds.
Flower Basket, we are calling it. As charted, it is 18 columns, 19 rows, for pattern symmetry. It works up *very* quickly, with only 2 pattern rows, one of which has very few over/unders (4-floats across its length).
I first worked it in lavender & leaf. I was expecting the front side to draw up into flowers, so I put the lavender into the white areas — oops! The *back* side draws up into flowery diamonds, so I ended up with leaf flowers on the bottom of my work, and the basket-woven effect on the top.
Before posting the charts to our site, I flipped the back and front from the draft version Piglet wove from, so the “flowers” should now form on the front face, in the “dark” color of our chart. — Matthew
The cayenne and white combination has much better contrast, so you can see the effect more clearly. The resulting fabric is great as a potholder. It does not bias or curl in any particular direction. It lies flat, and is quite thick and protective.
What a fantastic discovery! I cannot stop chortling over and petting it.
Matthew’s Postscript, March 2:
I love the fact that there are so many fun variations to explore in this space, and so many connections to make with the work that other talented weavers have done!
When I posted the chart for this design, I also included a split-loop variation, from which Eve created a fun weave that included horizontal stripes along the weft.
That reminded me of a design I’d seen a long time ago, and I poked around until I found this cool example from Christine from May 2022.
Then this afternoon a stray comment brought a neat weave from Linda from January 2023 back to the top of my Facebook feed, which uses a different variation of diamond twill and orients the color variations along the warp
Looking for similar patterns led me back to a lovely four-color weave by Julie from June 2022, which turns out to use the same split-loop structure as the one I’d posted, and includes pointers back to even earlier examples on Pinterest.
It’s wonderful that these basic structural elements — so simple that they’re independently re-discovered over and over again — can support such a wide range of expression as to create endless streams of unique woven pieces of art.
I’ve added another pair of charts incorporating the striped warp shown in Julie’s example — and may a thousand flowers bloom!