May 2025: Bronson Spot and Lace Hearts
Woven by Jennifer Shuster-Clark
This past January, Jannie Taylor, who was one of my influential weaving instructors, passed away. For my sample for the Guild, I wanted to pay homage to her by weaving one of her designs. She has many drafts available on Handweaving.net in conjunction with AVL. I took the original draft, 72371, and for this sample, simplified the colors and decreased the repeats (72371_v1).
After I wove the sample for the Guild, I continued to play with the original draft, weaving both weft float and warp float hearts on the same “row” of weaving (72371_v2).
It wasn’t until I started doing the write-up that I really questioned what was going on with this draft. It’s called both “Bronson spot” and “Lace Hearts”? But if you read about “Bronson” there is the “spot” version and the “lace” version, often referred to Atwater Bronson, but they are not the same. Spot Bronson is a non-unit weave while Atwater Bronson is a unit weave. I returned to the draft and examined the notes a bit more and then realized that the threading is in the form of Atwater Bronson: There is a thread, traditionally on shaft 2, at the end of the block that allows you to thread the same block in succession (i.e. unit block), but the treadling follows Spot Bronson fashion: The last pick of a block is shared with the first pick of the next block and the same block cannot be woven in sequence without creating overly long floats.
I had miscalculated how much warp I needed and put on much more than I needed for these samples. At first, I was annoyed at my error, but it gave me the opportunity to revisit the design and weave it in “Atwater Bronson” style and to play with other designs. Weaving the hearts in Atwater Bronson style does make them longer and I think I prefer the look of the shorter hearts. But weaving it in “Atwater Bronson” style also allows for blocks in the treadling to be repeated (72371_v3).
What started out as a few modifications with color and size morphed into a much larger opportunity to explore, play and learn!
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Structure: Bronson Spot and Lace
Pattern Source: Sample #72371 from the AVL Weaving School Collection on Handweaving.net, designed by Jannie Taylor.
Yarn: 8/2 cotton in both the warp and weft
Sett: 18 EPI/18 PPI
Finishing: Machine wash and dry, hot iron
Shrinkage: 8%
Loom: AVL K-series, 12 shafts used
WIF Files:
PDF Drafts:
#72371_v1 original draft for sample (click to open PDF)
#72371_v2 (click to open PDF)
#72371_v3 (click to open PDF)
Bio:
Jennifer took her first weaving class almost 20 years ago, shortly after moving to Seattle. She loves learning about different structures and using those structures to create her own designs.
