Weaving Drafts:
Double Bowknot
This series of a watercolor drawdown and corresponding weaving drafts, dating from the early-to-mid 1900s, illustrates a weave pattern known as Double Bow Knot. To record a pattern, a weaver creates a draft and/or a drawdown. A draft looks much like a strip of musical notation; a drawdown is a visual grid that illustrates a single weaving block. Founder of Allanstand Cottage Industries, Frances Louisa Goodrich (1856-1944) recorded weaving patterns she collected in and around Asheville, North Carolina. The Double Bow Knot pattern had special significance for Goodrich, as it was the design of the first coverlet she was given when she came to Brittain's Cove, North Carolina in 1895. She refers to it as the "Old Brown Coverlet" on pattern drafts. In her travels Goodrich came across other variations on the design. Drafts were given to her by Martha Owenby, Elmeda Walker, Mrs. Davis, and an unknown source. These four versions of the Double Bow Knot pattern illustrate Goodrich's method of interpreting drafts that she collected. She pasted the original into a notebook and created her own numerical version in a second notebook. In the early years of her work in creating drawdowns, Goodrich painted the patterns on hand-drawn graph paper; versions on printed graph paper were drawn later in Goodrich's life.
Return to Weaving Drafts Index
Craft Revival:
A Project of Hunter Library Digital Initiatives at Western Carolina University
Administered by the State Library of North Carolina and NC ECHO: Exploring Cultural Heritage Online
Heritage Partners: John C. Campbell Folk School, Museum of the Cherokee Indian, Penland School of Crafts, Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual,
Southern Highland Craft Guild, WCU Mountain Heritage Center, and WCU Special Collections
With funding from:
