I just placed drawdowns of three more of the drafts from Jacob Biesecker’s 19th century Pennsylvania German manuscript on my website at Jacob Biesecker. The first is a star work pattern named “Star and Acorn.” It is not a pattern I can remembered finding in any of the other Pennsylvania German manuscripts. The eight-point star is a symbol of prosperity, while the acorn represents strength. The pattern does require 18 shafts to weave it, but I wove it on my 16-shaft loom years ago by removing a couple of the pattern blocks.
The second draft is a classic multi-shaft float work/star work pattern with a diamond motif. It is woven on 7 blocks using 14 shafts. However, if you have an 8-shaft loom you can remove one of the blocks and use 2 shafts for the tie-downs and 6 shafts for the pattern. If you want to try it, let me know and I can figure out a draft for you.
A similar diamond draft is found in the Peter Diller manuscript on my website. This is the more common draft using 2 shafts for each of the 8 pattern blocks. Diller names his pattern Baltimore Quilt. David Bender also has a diamond motif pattern in his manuscript which is also called Baltimore Quilt or Flying Geese. His is the most unusual of the threading systems and his 8 pattern block version only requires 10 shafts.
The third drawdown is for a combination weave pattern. It is called ”combination weave,” since it uses two weave structures, point twill and turned twill. Eight shafts are required for the point twill and 8 shafts are needed for the two-block turned twill star and rose motifs. It fits into the singles cloth category in Christian Frey’s manuscript, because it only requires one warp and one weft.
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Star and Acorn Patchwirk Combination Weave