Weaving Drafts:
Federal City

Federal City Drawdown

This watercolor drawdown and its associated draft, dating to the late 1800s/early 1900s, illustrate the coverlet pattern known as Federal City. To record a pattern, a weaver creates a draft and/or a drawdown. A draft looks much like a strip of musical notation; a drawdown is a visual grid that illustrates a single weaving block. This drawdown was made by Frances Louisa Goodrich (1856-1944), who recorded weaving patterns she collected in and around Asheville, North Carolina. The use of graph paper indicates that this pattern was drawn later in her life, likely between 1920 and 1940. Goodrich collected two drafts of this pattern, which she pasted into a notebook. The draft is labeled "from Ky. through C.C. Angel." The Angel family, who lived in the Paint Fork of Ivy, NC, helped Goodrich interpret local weaving traditions. A second draft, pasted under the first, was from Olive Dame Campbell. The two draft strips demonstrate how an older pattern written with hatch marks was updated using numbers.


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