Turn Draft / Rotate Draft

What Are These?

A weaving draft has two axes: the threading (which shaft each warp thread goes through) and the treadling (which treadle to press for each pick). Turn Draft and Rotate Draft both swap these axes — threading becomes treadling and treadling becomes threading — but they do it in slightly different ways.

Think of it like turning a piece of paper. Both operations rotate your draft 90°, but in opposite directions (with some additional important differences), giving you different orientations of the same design.

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Where to Find Them

• Ribbon: Design tab > Transform group

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Turn Draft

Swaps the threading and treadling directly. The shaft sequence from your threading becomes the treadle sequence in your treadling, and vice versa. The tie-up is transposed (rows become columns, columns become rows) and inverted.

When to Use It

• Exploring design variations — Turning a draft can reveal interesting new patterns that aren't obvious in the original orientation

• Adapting imported drafts — If a draft was designed with threading as the dominant design element but you want to work with a treadling-driven approach, Turn Draft switches the perspective

• Studying structure — Seeing a draft from a different angle helps you understand how the threading and treadling interact

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Rotate Draft

Does the same axis swap as Turn Draft, but reverses the treadling order during the transformation. This gives you a different orientation — like rotating the draft the other direction.

When to Use It

• Same situations as Turn Draft, but when you want the mirror-image orientation

• Comparing orientations — Try both Turn and Rotate to see which version of the rotated design you prefer

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The Difference

Both operations swap threading and treadling and transpose the tie-up. The difference is in the direction:

• Turn Draft swaps the axes directly — what was at the beginning of the treadling ends up at the beginning of the threading

• Rotate Draft swaps the axes with the treadling reversed — what was at the end of the treadling ends up at the beginning of the threading

The easiest way to see the difference is to try both on the same draft and compare the results. Since undo works instantly, you can Turn, look at it, undo, Rotate, and compare.

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How to Use Them

1. Go to Design tab > Turn Draft or Rotate Draft

2. That's it — the transformation is applied immediately

There are no dialogs or options. The result is shown right away, and the status message tells you the new shaft and treadle counts.

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What Changes in Your Draft

• Threading ↔ Treadling — These swap places

• Tie-up — Transposed and inverted (rows become columns, values flip)

• Shaft and treadle counts — These may swap. If you had 4 shafts and 6 treadles, you'll now have 6 shafts and 4 treadles

• Thread counts — The number of warp threads becomes the number of weft picks, and vice versa

• Colors — Warp colors move to the weft, and weft colors move to the warp

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Limitations

• Tie-up mode only — Neither operation works in liftplan mode. Convert to tie-up first (Tools tab > To Tie-up).

• Single treadle only — Neither operation works with multi-treadle (double-press) treadling. Use Treadle Expander first to convert double-presses to single treadles.

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Tips

• Undo works — Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z) reverts either operation in one step.

• Try both — Turn and Rotate often produce quite different-looking results from the same starting draft. Try both to see which you prefer.

• Repeat for more rotations — Applying Turn Draft or Rotate Draft multiple times continues rotating the draft. Four turns brings you back to something close to the original (though the tie-up inversion means it won't be identical).

• Great for twills — Turning or rotating a twill draft often produces another attractive twill variation. It's a quick way to explore the design space.

• Check your counts — After turning, verify that the new shaft and treadle counts work for your loom. A draft with 8 treadles that becomes 8 shafts may require more shafts than your loom has.

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Quick Reference

Operation	Threading →	Treadling →	Tie-up	Treadling Reversed?
Turn Draft	Becomes treadling	Becomes threading	Transposed + inverted	No
Rotate Draft	Becomes treadling	Becomes threading (reversed)	Transposed + inverted	Yes