WEFT SILK MILL · EST. 1927
Silk Weaving Mill — Macclesfield

Light falls
between warp and weft

We print nothing. Every colour and every sheen on this cloth comes from the way the yarn is interlaced — change the structure and you change the path light takes through it. That is when a fabric starts to shine.

32looms running
11,400bolts a year
OEKO-TEX Standard 1006A grade mulberry silkTraceable to the filatureDrafts developed in houseShort runs from 30 metresSupplying 14 couture ateliersConservation-grade reproductionOEKO-TEX Standard 1006A grade mulberry silkTraceable to the filatureDrafts developed in houseShort runs from 30 metresSupplying 14 couture ateliersConservation-grade reproduction
02Silk · currently on the looms

Every bolt still carries
the number of the loom it came off

A fabric is not a square on a colour card. Each of these can be traced to the loom that wove it, the sett it was woven at, and every finishing bath it went through. Anyone buying it is entitled to know that.

Hoarfrost — Shot Satin

Hoarfrost — Shot Satin

Jacquard · 21 momme (79 gsm)

Warp one colour, weft another. Tilt it and the colour moves. Nothing is printed: the shift is two coloured yarns taking turns on the face.
Magpie — Brocaded Silk with Gilt

Magpie — Brocaded Silk with Gilt

Jacquard · 28 momme (105 gsm)

Gilt thread on an olive ground, drawn from a seventeenth-century fragment. A 48 cm repeat, and 2,400 cards to weave one of them.
Pinefall — Self-Figured Damask

Pinefall — Self-Figured Damask

Satin · 19 momme (71 gsm)

Figure and ground are the same thread. The pattern exists only as a difference in how two structures reflect. Flat light hides it; raking light brings it up.
Indigo Edge — Jacquard Silk

Indigo Edge — Jacquard Silk

Jacquard · 16 momme (60 gsm)

Six dips in natural indigo, aired between each one. Quieter than a synthetic navy, and it holds up far better in light.
Celadon — Scrolling Vine Damask

Celadon — Scrolling Vine Damask

Jacquard · 22 momme (82 gsm)

Bone figure on a grey-green ground. Thirty years on the same pattern, redrawn four times; the repeat has come in from 32 cm to 26.
Rainshed — Water-Repellent Gauze

Rainshed — Water-Repellent Gauze

Leno · 8 momme (30 gsm)

An 8 momme gauze given a water-repellent finish. A drop sits on the air trapped between the threads instead of spreading into them.
03Macclesfield · 1927

The Mill

A jacquard hand loom on the weaving floor 24hand looms · 3–4 m a day

Twenty-four hand looms
in a shed built for daylight

The building went up in 1927 as a throwing shed and was converted to weaving in 1958. The twenty-four hand looms still here give three to four metres a day each — slow, but the yarn is never dragged, and that is why the satin face still has life in it.

Eight electronic jacquards handle complex figuring and volume. Old and new stand side by side because they are good at different things, not out of nostalgia.

The draft comes first.
Then the cloth.

Before anything is warped, the draft goes onto squared paper: which end goes through which shaft, and which shafts lift on which treadle. One square wrong is a fault running the entire length of the piece.

So we put the draft online. You can change it yourself and watch the structure rewrite the cloth in real time.

Chains of punched pattern cards hanging beside a loom 1927weaving since · Macclesfield
04Interactive

A drawdown is not drawn.
It is computed.

Threading assigns every warp end to a shaft. The tie-up says which shafts rise on which treadle. Treadling says which treadle each pick uses. Fix those three and the cloth is decided — the diagram below solves it live. Click anywhere on it.

Threading / tie-up above · drawdown / treadling below Click to edit

Common structures

05Cocoon to bolt · seven passes

Seven passes before
it has earned the word cloth

Rush any one of them and it shows up later in the way the satin face takes light.

01 REELING

Reeling

Cocoons are softened in hot water and eight to ten filaments are drawn off together as one raw thread.

02 DOUBLING

Doubling

Raw threads are combined to the target count. This sets how heavy the finished cloth can be.

03 THROWING

Throwing

Twist is inserted and set. One turn more and the hand is firmer, the lustre duller.

04 WARPING

Warping

Several thousand ends are wound onto the beam at sett. Tension has to be identical right across the width.

05 WEAVING

Weaving

Shed, pick, beat — to the draft. A hand loom gives three to four metres a day.

06 DEGUMMING

Degumming

Sericin is boiled off. The colour goes from straw to white, the hand from stiff to fluid.

07 FINISHING

Finishing

Dyeing and setting. Two batches to the same recipe still get checked against each other.

06By the Numbers
0yrs weaving without a break, never changed trade
0looms by hand · three to four metres a day
0bolts a year, hand and electronic together
0m minimum run · no floor on colour count
Warp threads fanning through a loom in raking daylight

The light in the shed
changes four times a day

Satin has to be read in daylight. Cool in the morning, flat at noon, warm by mid-afternoon — the same bolt is four colours in one day, which is why we only pass cloth in a fixed window.

Mill photograph · representative
07From the loom floor

Written down
at the machine

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One square wrong on the draft is a line down the whole bolt

A draft is drawn on squared paper. One square across is one warp end; one square down is one pick of weft. Filled in means that end floats over. Get…

Reverse-engineering a 1930s taffeta from a twelve-centimetre scrap

A client sent us a piece twelve centimetres by nine and asked for it in bolt lengths. There were no records of any kind. All we had was the cloth.…

Tell us the hand you want.
The loom works out the rest.

Bring a swatch, a drawing, or just a sentence — "it should drape without going soft" is enough to start. We work backwards from yarn count. Minimum run 30 metres.

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