What Is a Threading Draft? Straight Draw, Point Draw and Tahar
Guide · Updated 22 October 2026
In short: the threading is the order in which the warp ends are drawn through the heddles on the loom's shafts: end 1 on shaft 1, end 2 on shaft 2, and so on. Written down as a grid it is the threading draft. It is fixed before the first pick is woven, and it decides which structures that warp can make. In a Turkish mill the same thing is called the tahar.
This guide assumes the words warp and weft and a passing idea of weave structures. It explains the part between the two: how a loom is told which warp threads to lift.
What the threading is
A loom does not lift warp ends one at a time. Each end passes through the eye of a heddle, and the heddles hang on frames called shafts (also harnesses). Lifting a shaft lifts every end threaded on it, all at once. So before weaving can start, someone has to decide which shaft each end goes on, and then draw every end through its heddle in that order. On a cloth of a few thousand ends, that is the longest job in setting up the loom.
That decision is the threading. Once it is done, every pick the weaver throws can only lift whole shafts. Two ends threaded on the same shaft always rise together and can never be told apart. The threading sets the vocabulary, and the weaving afterwards only arranges it.
How a threading draft is written
A threading draft is a grid. Each column is one warp end, and each row is one shaft. A filled square says "this end goes on this shaft", and there is exactly one per column. Shaft 1 is usually the row nearest the weaver, drawn at the bottom, and the pattern is written for one repeat and then repeated across the warp.
The threading is one of three parts of a full weaving draft:
- Threading: which shaft each end is on.
- Tie-up: which shafts each treadle lifts.
- Treadling: which treadle each pick is woven on, in order.
Put the three together and you can work out the drawdown, the picture of the cloth. That is the over-and-under grid people mean when they say "the weave". A WIF file carries all three parts, and the program that opens it computes the drawdown from them.
Conventions differ on which way to read the grid. Many hand-weaving books read it right to left and some mills read it left to right. Check the direction before you thread from someone else's draft.
The straight draw
The simplest threading puts the ends on the shafts in order, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4 and on across the warp. It is the straight draw (Turkish: düz tahar), and it is the threading for most twills. Here is a 2/2 twill on four shafts, with the threading above and two repeats of the drawdown below it:
The diagonal in the drawdown is the straight draw made visible. Each end sits one shaft higher than the last, and the lift steps one shaft along each pick, so the floats line up into a line that climbs.
The point draw, and why herringbone needs no extra shafts
Now thread the same four shafts up and then back down: 1, 2, 3, 4, then 4, 3, 2, 1. That is a point draw (Turkish: sivri tahar), and on it the same lifts weave a herringbone:
This is the most useful thing to understand about threading. The tie-up and the treadling of this herringbone are the same as those of the twill above. We checked by working all four parts out of both drawdowns. The only difference is the order of the ends on the shafts. The diagonal reverses because the threading reverses. A weaver can therefore put a twill and a herringbone on the same four-shaft loom. The structure changes when the loom is threaded, not when it is woven.
The reverse is also true, and it is the catch. Once a warp is threaded on a point draw, everything woven on it will have a reversal at the same places. The threading cannot be changed between picks. A designer who wants a plain twill in one stripe and a herringbone in the next is asking for a threading that changes across the warp, and that is a decision for the start of the job, not for the weaving.
Two shafts, threaded in pairs
A threading can also put neighbouring ends on the same shaft. Plain weave alternates 1, 2, 1, 2. A 2/2 basket threads 1, 1, 2, 2: two ends on each shaft, side by side. They rise and fall together, so they behave like one thick thread.
So a basket needs no more shafts than plain weave does. Neighbouring ends are threaded on the same shaft and neighbouring picks are woven on the same lift. This is a general rule: ends that lift the same way on every pick of the repeat can share a shaft, and only the distinct ones need a shaft of their own.
| Structure | Threading (one repeat) | Shafts | Name of the draw |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | 1 2 | 2 | straight, on two |
| 2/2 basket | 1 1 2 2 | 2 | paired |
| 2/1 twill | 1 2 3 | 3 | straight |
| 2/2 twill | 1 2 3 4 | 4 | straight (düz tahar) |
| 3/1 twill | 1 2 3 4 | 4 | straight |
| Herringbone | 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 4 3 2 1 4 3 2 1 | 4 | point (sivri tahar) |
These are the threadings our software writes for the structures it offers, worked out from each structure's drawdown rather than copied from a book. The 2/2 and 3/1 twills share a threading. They differ only in the tie-up: the 3/1 lifts three shafts on each pick where the 2/2 lifts two.
Where the threading comes from in our designer
In the designer you do not write a threading. You choose a structure or draw one cell by cell in the Loom, and that grid is the drawdown. When you export the design as a WIF, the threading, the tie-up and the treadling are worked out from it with the rule above: ends that lift the same way on every pick share a shaft, and picks with the same lifts share a treadle. The export sheet then says how many shafts and treadles the cloth needs, and whether it fits a 4, 8, 16 or 24-shaft loom, before you download anything.
Most often the threading comes back as one of the draws in the table. A block weave, a cloth where one stripe is woven in a different structure from the next, comes back with a threading that changes across the warp. That is where the shaft count can climb past what a small loom carries, which is why the sheet tells you.
Try it live: open a 2/2 twill and a herringbone side by side and compare the drawdowns. Then export each as a WIF and open both in the WIF viewer: same shafts, same tie-up, different threading.
Open the weave engine →Frequently asked questions
What does tahar mean in weaving?
Tahar is the Turkish weaving word for the threading: the order in which the warp ends are drawn through the heddles on the shafts. A tahar planı is the threading draft, düz tahar is the straight draw and sivri tahar is the point draw. The frames the ends are threaded onto are the çerçeve, the shafts.
What is the difference between a threading draft and a drawdown?
The threading draft is an instruction for setting up the loom: which shaft each warp end goes on. The drawdown is the result, the over-and-under picture of the cloth. You get the drawdown by combining the threading with the tie-up and the treadling.
What is a straight draw?
Threading the warp ends onto the shafts in order, 1, 2, 3, 4 and repeat. It is the threading for most twills, and on four shafts it weaves 2/2 and 3/1 twill depending only on the tie-up.
What is a point draw?
A threading that runs up the shafts and back down, such as 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1, or the version used here with each half repeated. Woven with twill lifts, it reverses the diagonal at every turn of the threading, which gives herringbone and other chevron patterns.
Can you change the threading while weaving?
No. The threading is fixed once the ends are through the heddles. Changing it means drawing the ends out and threading them again. That is why the threading is decided before anything else, and why a cloth that changes structure from stripe to stripe has to be planned into the threading from the start.
How many shafts does a weave need?
One for every group of ends that lift the same way on every pick of the repeat. Plain weave and basket need two, a 2/1 twill three, and 2/2 twill, 3/1 twill and herringbone four. The guide to loom shafts goes into what limits that number.