Where should I tie up my tabby treadles?

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Where to tie up tabby treadles is a matter of some debate! Many people – including me! – feel they know the Right Answer, but of course the only right answer is the one that works best for you.

If you prefer your tabby treadles to the inside or outside and your autopilot is used to them being there, then by all means continue to weave that way. If you’re feeling magnanimous and are willing to give try putting the tabby treadles to one side, I hope you will – and that you’ll weave with them like that for a while to give your autopilot time to adjust. You might discover that, even though your old way works, you having them to one side even better.

If you’ve already given it a try and got into a muddle or simply did. not. like. it, then by all means carry on with what you DO like.

With that caveat out of the way, here’s MY opinion, and my justification for it:

Put your tabby treadles to one side

(To the left or to the right, it doesn’t matter. More about this below.)

If you’re weaving a structure with two alternating wefts and those two wefts have their own dedicated treadles – as happens with tabby and pattern wefts in overshot, summer and winter, crackle, and other similar structures – it’s easier on your body and brain to assign one task and its treadles to your left foot and the other task and its treadles to your right foot. Or, in other words, to tie up your tabby treadles on either the left or the right, and always treadle them with the same foot while your other foot weaves pattern.

It’s easier on your body because this creates a walking tie-up so that your left and right foot will always alternate, so your hips, knees, and legs will be splitting the work evenly (and alternately).

It’s easier on your brain because your left and right foot will always alternate — tabby, pattern, tabby, pattern — so you won’t need to stop and think, “wait, which foot next?” at any time. Your feet will automatically reach for the treadles at their appointed time and treadling the tabby will very nearly take care of itself without you thinking about it. This means you’ll only need to concentrate hard on what the pattern treadles are doing.

Easier treadling rhythm

Don’t believe me that the rhythm of your feet is easier to keep track of? Compare these three treadling grids to see what I mean.

Tabbies on left
Pattern treadles only
Tabbies outside

The one on the left has the tabby treadles on the left and the pattern treadles on the right. (There’s an empty treadle between them just so it’s easier to tell the treadles apart.) The one on the right has the tabby treadles to either side of the pattern treadles. (Again, there are empty treadles between the tabby and pattern treadles just so it’s easier to see.) The one in the center is only the pattern treadles so you can check and confirm that the pattern treadles are doing the same thing in all three columns.

Tabbies to one side

If you tied up your treadles with the tabbies to the left, as in the left column, this treadling would alternate left, right, left, right, left, right, and on and on the entire time, just like marching. (That’s why this is called a “walking tie-up”). It’s easy to keep track of and easy to notice if the pattern is interrupted.

With your treadles like this, your autopilot can manage your left foot doing the tabby so that you can focus on the order your right foot is stepping on pattern treadles.

If you put the tabbies on the right instead of the left, then your right foot works by autopilot while you focus on what your left is doing. If you’re strongly right or left footed, put your dominant foot in charge of the pattern while the other one coasts along treadling tabby.

Tabbies outside or inside

If you tied up your treadles with the tabbies to the outside, as in the right hand column above, the treadling order is (hold onto your hat): left, left, right, left, left, left, right, left, left, right, right, right, left, right, right, right — there’s no consistency or pattern to what order your feet are used in! It’s MUCH harder to keep track of your place in a treadling like this, and much harder to simply delegate the tabby to your autopilot and focus on the pattern.

The same would be true if your tabby treadles were between the pattern treadles. Both feet would have to perform both tasks, and at seemingly random intervals without any pattern. SO much harder to keep your place!

Right tabby / left tabby

Some weavers feel that putting the tabbies to the outside makes it easier to remember which tabby to step on because you use the left treadle when the shuttle is on the left and the right treadle when it’s on the right.

While that may be true, if you think of the left tabby treadle and the right tabby treadle, the mnemonic applies no matter where the tabby treadles are relative to the pattern treadles. One of the tabby treadles is to the left of the other and can be named the “left tabby treadle”, while the other is to the right of the first and can be named the “right tabby treadle.” All that you need to know is where the two tabby treadles are relative to each other.