A honeycomb weave is a single cloth in which some warp and weft threads float over several others while the threads between them interlace closely. The long floats stand up as ridges, the closely woven parts sink into hollows, and the cloth reads as a grid of cells; one variety was already called waffle cloth in 1923. The drafts below are computed from the construction rules in two public-domain weaving textbooks, checked against the textbooks’ own figures, and measured for the floats that make the cells.
- The ridges are the longest warp and weft floats. The hollows are where threads interweave plain.
- Ordinary honeycomb weaves on a pointed draft, repeats on two threads fewer than twice the shafts, looks much the same on both sides, and makes one cell per repeat.
- Brighton honeycomb needs a straight draft and a repeat that is a multiple of four, eight at the smallest. It makes cells on one side only, two large and two small per repeat.
- Recorded uses are towels, quilts and bedcovers, and some dress and suiting cloth.
What a honeycomb weave is
Watson describes honeycomb cloths as textures in which the threads form ridges and hollows that give a cell-like appearance. Warp and weft both float fairly freely on both sides, and with the rough surface this makes the cloth readily absorbent (Watson, Textile Design and Colour, second edition, 1921, p. 78). He divides the weaves into two classes: ordinary honeycombs, which give a similar effect on both sides of the cloth, and Brighton honeycombs, which form the cells on one side only.
Nisbet calls the first class honeycomb “proper” and traces the name to a partial resemblance to the hexagonal wax cells of a bee’s comb (Nisbet, Grammar of Textile Design, first edition, 1906, p. 78). The weaves are drawn on a diamond, but the cells look rectangular in the cloth (Watson 1921, p. 80). Harmuth’s entry for Brighton agrees: a honeycomb in a straight draft, threads in the repeat divisible by four, diamonds alternately small and large, not reversible (Harmuth, Dictionary of Textiles, 1915). For the other weave families, see major fabric weaving patterns.
Honeycomb or waffle?
Denny’s fabric dictionary defines honeycomb as a weave of marked ridges and hollows used in towelling and occasionally in cotton or wool suiting. One variety, it says, is called “waffle cloth”, and honeycomb towelling has a surface suggesting a honeycomb or a waffle (Denny, Fabrics and How to Know Them, 1923, pp. 54–55). Neither Watson nor Nisbet uses the word waffle; the structure they call honeycomb is the one drafted below.
Three other things share the name. The site’s article on multi-layer fabrics uses honeycomb for a 3D woven structure with hollow spaces between joined layers. Watson’s “honeycomb-huckaback” is a huckaback weave with longer floats (Watson 1921, p. 83). Nisbet’s “honeycomb effects” are sponge weaves with some of the character but not the construction (Nisbet 1906, p. 87).
How a honeycomb weave is constructed
On design paper each square is one end crossing one pick; ends run left to right and picks upward, so pick 1 is the bottom row. A coloured square is a mark: warp up. Watson builds the ordinary honeycomb in three steps (Fig. 81, A to C; Watson 1921, pp. 78–79):
- Draw a pointed draft on the number of shafts. On five shafts the line climbs from end 1 to end 5 and comes back through 4, 3 and 2, so the repeat is eight ends. Each extra shaft adds two: ten ends on six shafts, twelve on seven. This is the same pointed diamond described in diamond and diagonal weaves.
- Reverse it. Draw the mirror image across the same square, so the two lines cross and divide the repeat into two diamond spaces.
- Fill one diamond space with marks and leave the other blank.
Read square by square, Watson’s design C shows a detail his text leaves out: the fill stops one square short of the outline all the way round, so a ring of single blanks separates the solid diamond from the outline. The draft below is built that way, and it is design C exactly.
| Pick, then ends | End 1 | End 2 | End 3 | End 4 | End 5 | End 6 | End 7 | End 8 | Weft float |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pick 8 | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | 5 |
| Pick 7 | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | 3 |
| Pick 6 | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | 1 |
| Pick 5 | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp up | 1 |
| Pick 4 | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | 1 |
| Pick 3 | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | 3 |
| Pick 2 | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | 5 |
| Pick 1 | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | 7 |
| Warp float | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
With marks as warp up, the first end forms the warp ridge and the first pick the weft ridge (Watson 1921, p. 80). Here end 1 floats over 5 picks and pick 1 over 7 ends; from there the floats shorten in steps of two, down to single interlacings around the centre. On six shafts the same rule gives a ten-end repeat. For design D, Watson gives the floats: if the marks show warp up, the weft floats are 9, 7, 5, 3 and 1 and the warp floats 7, 5, 3 and 1 (p. 79). The ten-end draft below gives exactly those.
| Pick, then ends | End 1 | End 2 | End 3 | End 4 | End 5 | End 6 | End 7 | End 8 | End 9 | End 10 | Weft float |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pick 10 | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | 7 |
| Pick 9 | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | 5 |
| Pick 8 | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | 3 |
| Pick 7 | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp up | 1 |
| Pick 6 | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | 1 |
| Pick 5 | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp up | 1 |
| Pick 4 | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | 3 |
| Pick 3 | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | 5 |
| Pick 2 | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | 7 |
| Pick 1 | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | 9 |
| Warp float | 7 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 |
On a square repeat one yarn always floats more on the face: 27 of the 64 squares in the eight-end draft are warp, and Nisbet’s six-end example has 15 of 36, as the same rule on four shafts does (Nisbet 1906, p. 82). For equal floats Watson makes the design repeat on two more picks than ends, or two more ends than picks at the cost of one more shaft (designs G and I, p. 79). Nisbet’s simplest true honeycomb, six ends by four picks, has warp and weft equal, so both sides are exactly alike.
The Brighton honeycomb
Brighton weaves need a straight draft, and the repeat must be a multiple of four threads (Watson 1921, p. 81); eight ends by eight picks is the smallest (Nisbet 1906, p. 86). The base is a single row of marks running one way and a double row running the other. In Watson’s Fig. 83 R the double row is two lines with one diagonal between them, Nisbet’s double-stitch twill. Taking marks as warp up, marks are added to the double rows to make a small warp diamond in the right and left corners of each diamond space, leaving a weft diamond in the top and bottom corners. The centre thread of each small diamond floats over one thread fewer than half the repeat: 3 on eight threads, 7 on sixteen, 9 on twenty.
| Pick, then ends | End 1 | End 2 | End 3 | End 4 | End 5 | End 6 | End 7 | End 8 | Weft float |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pick 8 | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | 1 |
| Pick 7 | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | 3 |
| Pick 6 | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | 3 |
| Pick 5 | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | 1 |
| Pick 4 | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | 1 |
| Pick 3 | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | 3 |
| Pick 2 | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | 3 |
| Pick 1 | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | 1 |
| Warp float | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 |
Sixteen threads show the structure more clearly. This is Watson’s own example.
| Pick, then ends | End 1 | End 2 | End 3 | End 4 | End 5 | End 6 | End 7 | End 8 | End 9 | End 10 | End 11 | End 12 | End 13 | End 14 | End 15 | End 16 | Weft float |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pick 16 | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | 1 |
| Pick 15 | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | 3 |
| Pick 14 | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | 5 |
| Pick 13 | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | 7 |
| Pick 12 | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | 7 |
| Pick 11 | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | 5 |
| Pick 10 | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp down | 3 |
| Pick 9 | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | 1 |
| Pick 8 | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | 1 |
| Pick 7 | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | 3 |
| Pick 6 | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp down | 5 |
| Pick 5 | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | 7 |
| Pick 4 | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | 7 |
| Pick 3 | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp down | 5 |
| Pick 2 | warp down | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp down | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | 3 |
| Pick 1 | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp up | warp down | 1 |
| Warp float | 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 1 |
The long centre floats form the ridges, but the hollows come in two sizes: a large one where the double line crosses the single line, a small one at the centre of each diamond space. An ordinary honeycomb makes one cell per repeat, a Brighton two large and two small (Watson 1921, p. 81). Nisbet adds that the Brighton is not reversible: the back is rough and indefinite. Put the warp and weft diamonds in each other’s places and the long floats form a cross inside each diamond instead of a square, and the cloth is wrong side up (Nisbet 1906, pp. 86–87). Turning the cloth over does exactly that, since it reverses every square.
Float lengths: why the longest floats become the cell walls
Nisbet’s explanation: a thread stands out more the less it is interlaced, so the ridges are the longer warp and weft floats lying uppermost, and the hollows are where threads interlace more. In his eight-end example each thread lies lower as its float shortens, from the first end and pick to the fifth, at the bottom of the cell (Nisbet 1906, p. 85). Watson adds that the plain weave near the centre tightens the threads and pulls a depression (Watson 1921, p. 80).
The table is counted from the four drafts. A float is the longest run of one thread over the other, read across the edge of the repeat; the back of the cloth is the draft with every square reversed.
| Draft | Repeat, ends × picks | Draft and shafts | Longest warp float, face | Longest weft float, face | Warp squares on the face | Longest floats on the back, warp / weft |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ordinary, 8 ends | 8 × 8 | Pointed, 5 shafts | 5 (end 1) | 7 (pick 1) | 27 of 64 (42%) | 7 / 5 |
| Ordinary, 10 ends | 10 × 10 | Pointed, 6 shafts | 7 (end 1) | 9 (pick 1) | 43 of 100 (43%) | 9 / 7 |
| Brighton, 8 ends | 8 × 8 | Straight, 8 shafts | 3 (ends 2, 3, 6 and 7) | 3 (picks 2, 3, 6 and 7) | 32 of 64 (50%) | 3 / 3 |
| Brighton, 16 ends | 16 × 16 | Straight, 16 shafts | 7 (ends 4, 5, 12 and 13) | 7 (picks 4, 5, 12 and 13) | 128 of 256 (50%) | 7 / 7 |
In the ordinary weave one end and one pick per repeat carry the longest floats: one wall each way, one cell per repeat. On the back the two lengths swap, so the back has cells too, which is why the ordinary honeycomb works on both sides. In the 16-end Brighton, 4 ends share the longest warp float (ends 4, 5, 12 and 13), and the picks match. Its back has the same float lengths but no clear cells: it is the position of the floats, not their length alone, that makes the cell.
On the loom
- Shafts. On the pointed draft, ends 2 and 8, 3 and 7, and 4 and 6 lift alike, so the eight-end weave needs 5 shafts and the ten-end 6. No two ends of a Brighton lift alike, so it needs a shaft for every end: 8 for the smallest, 16 for Watson’s example. The table counts the different end movements in each draft. Watson also gives ordinary honeycombs on a straight-draft base (Fig. 81, N to Q, p. 80); the drafts are compared in drafting plans in weaving.
- Size and firmness. Large honeycombs tend to be loose, so Watson adds a double row of base marks, as in design K on nine shafts (p. 79), and Nisbet builds them on a double-stitch diamond. His usual sizes run from eight by six to twelve by twelve, larger only in fine, closely set cloth (Nisbet 1906, pp. 83–84).
- Square cells. A true honeycomb repeats on an even number of ends and picks. Where ends and picks per inch differ, Nisbet picks a repeat in the same ratio, or the cells will not be square (pp. 81–82).
- Yarn and sett. The effect is stronger in compact cloth of coarse folded yarn than in loose cloth of fine single yarn, so folded warp, often folded weft too, at a high sett is usual (Nisbet 1906, pp. 80–81). Watson wants warp and weft alike. For 20s cotton, at 118 diameters to the inch, plain cloth takes at most 59 ends and picks per inch; about 88, halfway to the diameters, suits an ordinary honeycomb, and a large, loose one can be set closer (Watson 1921, p. 129).
- Particulars. For his ten-end design D, Watson gives 2/12s cotton warp and weft at 50 ends and picks per inch for a heavy cloth, and 24s warp with 18s weft at 88 ends and 80 picks for a lighter one. About the same particulars suit the 16-end Brighton (p. 81).
- Colour. A coloured thread on a long-float position follows the ridges as a small check; between them it shows only as spots at the bottom of the cells. A Brighton is sometimes woven 2-and-2 in thick and thin yarn, the thick threads on the longest floats (Watson 1921, pp. 81–82).
Where honeycomb is used
These are the uses the sources record, from 1906 to 1923. They describe that trade, not today’s market.
- Towels. All three put towels first: absorbent, says Watson (p. 78); soft and absorbent bath towels, says Nisbet (Nisbet 1906, p. 79). Denny adds that the weave exposes more surface for absorption than plain weave, and that heavy honeycomb is used instead of terry for bath towels (p. 55). For the looped alternative, see terry towels.
- Bedcovers and quilts. Watson’s honeycomb quilts are woven on ordinary jacquards in thick, soft-twisted two- or three-fold yarn, in large, bold designs whose diamond-shaped and other sections are filled with ordinary and Brighton honeycombs of different sizes: 2/16s cotton warp, 3/18s weft, 46 to 54 ends and 36 to 48 picks per inch (Watson 1921, p. 411). Nisbet’s honeycomb counterpanes and toilet covers take their name from being built almost wholly from these weaves (p. 79).
- Clothing. Nisbet records heavy cotton and woollen honeycomb cloth for women’s winter garments, under and outer (p. 79). Watson gives a botany dress fabric of 2/60s warp and 30s weft at 90 ends and 90 picks per inch (p. 400). Denny mentions occasional cotton or wool suiting (p. 54).
How this page is kept
Last verified: 4 October 2026. The drafts are generated by the script that builds this page, from the rules quoted above, and it refuses to publish unless they match the sources square for square: Watson’s Fig. 81 C and Fig. 83 S, and Nisbet’s Fig. 228 from a different starting thread. It also checks the ten-end floats against Watson’s design D and the Brighton centre float against his rule. The float table is counted from the drafts. Sources are public-domain scans on the Internet Archive, cited at the page used; figures were read from the page images. Corrections are welcome through the contact page.
