The grid in cloth is a thread count
Search for a “grid weave” and you will find pictures but no definition, because in weaving there is no such structure. That sounds like a technicality. It is the most useful thing anyone can tell you about grids in fabric, because it says where to go and change one.
A woven grid is made by the order of the coloured threads, not by the way they interlace. The cloth underneath a windowpane check is ordinary plain weave — the same plain weave as a plain shirt. What draws the lines is that the warp runs seventy-two threads of the ground colour and then four threads of the line colour, and the weft does the same thing across it. Where the two sets of four cross, the line is solid; along the rest it is a single fine rule; and in the wide field between, no line at all. That is the whole construction.
A grid is a count, so write it down
| Check | The count | Weave |
|---|---|---|
| Windowpane | 72 ground · 4 line | plain |
| Tattersall | 22 ground · 2 line A · 22 ground · 2 line B | plain |
| Gingham | an even small check, one ground and one line | plain |
Those are the counts the studio's own ready-made checks are built from, not illustrations of the idea. Windowpane is 72 and 4; tattersall's second line colour is the entire difference between the two.
Reading a grid off a photograph
If you have a fabric in front of you, you can recover its count without a loom. Put a rule on
the cloth, count the threads in one ground field and one line, and write them down in that
order. Twenty-four threads of navy and two of white is N24 W2, and the repeat is
26 threads wide. At 28 ends per inch that is a 22 mm field with a 2 mm rule through
it, which is why a windowpane on a shirt and a windowpane on a coat look like different
patterns: the same count at a different sett is a different size of window.
How to read a thread count covers the notation itself, including what the letters mean and where a pattern mirrors.
When the grid really is woven
Three cases, and they are worth knowing apart from the colour grid.
- Plain weave at a balanced sett is itself a grid — one over, one under, in both directions. Hold any plain-woven cloth close and the grid is the cloth.
- Basket, or 2/2 hopsack, doubles both threads, so the grid it makes is twice as coarse and you can see it at arm's length. It is a texture grid with no colour in it at all.
- A draft you write yourself. A loom draft of up to sixteen shafts by sixteen treadles will draw a lattice that is genuinely woven rather than dyed, cell by cell.
Everything else leans. A 2/2, 3/1 or 2/1 twill and a herringbone all run a diagonal float, and a leaning float is what stops a twill check from reading as a clean grid — which is why a glen check looks soft and a windowpane looks drawn. If the grid is the point, stay on plain weave.
The short answer
Do not look for a grid weave. Choose plain weave and then write the count: a wide ground, a narrow line, and a second line colour if you want a tattersall. If you want a grid you can feel rather than see, that is basket weave, and it has nothing to do with colour at all.
Try it live: The Plaid Studio weaves the count you type, thread by thread — windowpane and tattersall are two of its ready-made checks, on real plain weave rather than drawn lines.
Open the pattern software →Frequently asked questions
Is there such a thing as a grid weave?
No. A grid in woven cloth comes from the colour order — a wide ground and a narrow line, in both directions — on top of an ordinary weave, usually plain. The nearest thing to a structural grid is basket (2/2 hopsack), which gives a texture grid with no colour in it.
What is the difference between a windowpane and a tattersall?
One line colour or two. A windowpane runs a single line colour over the ground; a tattersall alternates two, so the grid reads as two overlapping sets of lines.
How wide is a windowpane check?
It depends on the sett, not the count alone. A 72-and-4 count at 28 ends per inch gives a field about 65 mm across; the same count at 56 ends per inch is half that. This is why the same pattern has to be quoted with its density.
Why does a twill check not look like a grid?
Because a twill floats diagonally. The lean softens the line's edges and breaks the corners where two lines cross, which is the difference between a glen check and a windowpane.