Reweaving Marguerite Porter Davison’s Handweaver’s Pattern Book
About this episode
The episode discusses the efforts to reweave and republish Marguerite Porter Davison’s influential weaving book, A Handweaver's Pattern Book.
Among four-shaft weavers, A Handweaver's Pattern Book is commonly referred to by just the author’s name—Davison—or as “the green book,” a reference to the iconic cover of many of the book’s printings. Since Marguerite Porter Davison first published it in 1944, it has been a foundational reference, the first book that many weavers buy and the one they keep close at hand. Packed with drafts and photographs for overshot, twill, crackle, and dozens of other structures, it’s the weaver’s answer to The Joy of Cooking : a starting point for design, a resource for understanding a structure, and a map for exploration. Although it remained in print for decades, it became unavailable in 2005, and the weaving community felt the loss. For the past several years, a group of nearly 100 weavers and other volunteers has been working to bring it back. Weavers from guilds from coast to coast have nearly finished reweaving all of the book’s samples—more than 1,200 of them—in color. Technical reviewers have created contemporary drafts. The original instructions for sinking-shed looms have been adapted to the jack looms more common in most weavers’ studios. Despite the updates, the project’s north…
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