The Reverse Drafting Club from The Weaving Mill

Sharing an email that was sent to the guild that may be of interest to some members and potentially a program idea.

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Greetings guild-leaders near and far, from cold Chicago!

My name is Emily Winter and I am director of The Weaving Mill and de-facto Reverse Drafting Club president. Reverse drafting is the process of unraveling woven fabrics and diagramming their construction on graph paper using draft notation. Our mail-based club is organized around quarterly mailings which include 3 swatches each, along with solutions to the previous installment's swatches (akin to the weekly crossword!) Each group of swatches tends to revolve around a theme: variations on a specific weave structure, material studies, etc. We design and weave all the fabrics for the RDC on our industrial dobby loom here at our studio in Chicago, then cut them down into 3" swatches to mail out to our members. We have been running the Reverse Drafting Club since 2022 ~ we have members signing up from all over the country, and even internationally! One year's membership costs $42 and includes 4 mailings of 3 swatches each, as well as invitations to virtual gatherings to discuss the swatches and access to a membership directory so folks can connect with other club members in their area.

One of our repeat members wrote this article about her experience with the club club for the Weavers Guild of Minnesota, and I am attaching an article I wrote about the RDC for the Summer 2023 issue of Shuttle Spindle & Dyepot.

I am writing today to 1) let you know about this very fun and special program 2) humbly request that you pass the word along to any of your members who might be interested! The club is far more fun with more members, and we've heard great feedback from folks who sign up as a group and host in-person study/unraveling sessions together.

In addition, I have given presentations to several weaving guilds (Illinois Prairie Weavers Guild, Weavers Guild of the North Shore, Weavers Guild of Greater Baltimore) on The Weaving Mill and the RDC, as well as virtual Reverse Drafting workshops. If those might be of interest to you as you plan your 2026-2027 programming, do let me know!

Wishing you a wonderful end of year, and thanks for taking the time to read this missive,

Emily Winter

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The Weaving Mill

1801 North Spaulding Avenue
Chicago, IL 60647
www.theweavingmill.com