Create thrilling drafts...
no design experience needed!

Advancing Twills!

a four-week workshop
June 21-July 19, 2024

Take your twills from dull to dazzling...

...no drafting experience needed!

You may have admired beautiful advancing twills in books or draft libraries and envied the designers. “Wow! That’s gorgeous…but way too hard for me to create my own.”

Or perhaps you tried designing your own, only to get frustrated by designs that had overly long floats, or that looked like everyone else’s.

But while advancing twills LOOK complicated, they’re easy to design if you know how. 

And you don’t need a bazillion shafts, expensive weaving software, or tons of experience to create gorgeous drafts, either.

Advancing Twills

Start designing drafts that thrill you, in just four weeks

Here’s what you'll learn:

Just $59

Here are just a few of the designs you can create!

How you’ll learn

And here’s how we’ll support you, every step of the way…

“The teaching is clear and concise. It’s visual as well as verbal. I’ve never felt like a question was unwarranted or stupid, although I’ve probably asked a few of those! And you don’t have to buy a kit. You use what you’ve got, and you develop your own skills at your own pace and level.”
- Courtney Mitchell
Just $59

About Your Instructor

Janet Dawson
The co-founder of the Handweaving Academy

Janet teaches weave structure and weaving technique at the Handweaving Academy. She’s taught thousands of students in her online classes, and gets rave reviews for breaking down and teaching complex ideas in a way that’s easy to understand. 

“Good cloth, happy weaver” is her mantra. Her goal is not to dictate How Things Should Be Done, but to provide information and options that allow you to decide for yourself how to achieve good cloth and enjoy yourself while making it.

“I can honestly say that Janet Dawson is a breath of fresh air. Janet's teaching method left me feeling encouraged, and confident in my own abilities. I have learned more from Janet than I did from any class, book, or anywhere else.”
- Wrightvin

Frequently Asked Questions

We do! The focus of our online school is helping weavers design projects that reflect their personal style and that thrill and excite them.

Our members learn about all aspects of weaving – color, weave structure and drafting, project design, and weaving technique.

One membership gets you access to dozens of courses, and we release a new workshop approximately every four weeks.

You don’t need Academy membership to register for this class! Everyone is welcome.

No worries! You’ll learn how to design in this class, and you’ll get plenty of opportunities to practice, with step-by-step instructions.

Absolutely! This class will take you far beyond the 45-degree diamonds and X’s of traditional advancing twill. There are SO many more designs to be had than that!

You’ll learn to create angles, undulations, shading, and points in advancing twill – plus a whole lot more.

You don’t! The Draft Editor that you’ll use to create designs works in any browser, so the only thing you’ll need is a tablet or desktop/laptop computer. (We do recommend using a stylus for those using tablets, to make editing easier.) 

The Draft Editor is easy to use. We’ll provide instructions and demos on how to use it, too.

You should be able to read a draft and be familiar with twill structure before taking this class. You do NOT need to have designed your own drafts.

You can weave advancing twills on any loom with four or more shafts. In this class, most of the lessons and examples will use 8 shafts, but we will also discuss advancing twills on 4 shafts and more than 8 shafts.

Nope! You’ll design lots of drafts, but you do not need to weave anything (unless you want to!).

You’ll get answers! You can post questions in each lesson’s built-in Q&A section, or ask them at the Live Q&A session that comes with the class. If you have a question, we’ll make sure you get an accurate answer!

Both! You get the best of both worlds. 

The lessons are entirely self-paced (and available at the start of the class), but you’ll get live webinars and Q&A sessions, as well as an in-class discussion forum where you can get answers to your questions. The live sessions are recorded, closed-captioned, and transcribed for those who cannot attend “live”.

While the live portion of the course lasts four weeks, you’ll have access to all course materials and tools for four extra weeks after the course is done, for a total of eight weeks.

If you join the Handweaving Academy, you’ll have access to all course materials and tools for as long as you’re a member – as well as dozens and dozens of other classes, powerful design tools, and lots of live events.

We want our students to be happy! If you’re not satisfied with the class, you can get a full refund within the first 14 days. No questions, nothing to fill out, no strings attached. Just drop us a line.

Just $59
“I want to weave things where my relatives will say, 50 years from now, “Oh, that was one of grandma’s! With singers or musicians, you can always tell a person who has put a piece of their soul into their music. It comes out in their music.

And I think that the Handweaving Academy teaches us how to put that piece of our soul into our weaving. Not to just be like everybody else, using textbook formulas, but to put ourselves into our weaving.”
- Joy Hogg