Sounds familiar.
I don't know what "French Weaving" is supposed to be, but I have always been impatient that so few common-sense textile experts have been involved in examining the shroud. And by expert, he'd better know his way around a spinning wheel and a loom. Get some woman who knows her laundry, and have a look at it!
What this man describes is darning--and it is a simple process which is difficult to do invisibily, but up until the mid-20th century most well-brought-up schoolgirls could do it! You see excellent darning samples in American museums, that's what "samplers" were for--for a girl to demonstrate her skills at maintaining household linens--which were very expensive and scarce "heir-looms". Only secondarily was sewing considered decorative.
Linen is a heavily labor-intensive fabric, particularly compared to wool. Flax grows to be almost two feet long, and it was harvested traditionally by being pulled up by hand. Then it must be "retted" (rotted) in a damp field and the outer fiber removed, Then it has to be pounded and combed into what looks like a silky horse's tail, and finally spun into thread--for medieval times, it would have been spun on a small "flax wheel". In ancient times, it would be spun on a long spindle--you see them in ancient Egyptian illustrations. Then, finally, the thread would be woven into cloth. The wider the cloth, the more difficult and valuable the fabric.
I've never seen a discussion on the qualities of the threads themselves. Is this a fine, expensive linen cloth, spun of the longest fibers? Or was it from the coarse "tow" line, which are the shorter leftovers and must be spun thicker to keep the fibers together? This would be a mark of status. We see a cheap sheet--but in medieval times a fine length of linen represented a major investment.
What is the quality of the weave? Is it plain "tabby" weave? (Over and under like a child's effort at a potholder).
So much is taken for granted or ignored--the cloth itself should tell you everything you need to know. It would be highly unlikely for a fraud to bother using a 2000-yr-old piece of fabric. A fraud in the 12th century wouldn't be worrying about scientific dating. And it really should be easy for a textile expert to figure out how old the fabric is.
I think this is a "teach the controversy" advocate. This allows the subject of religion to be brought up in public schools in formal setting.
In a similar manner flying saucer advocates could "teach the controversy" about UFO artifacts tested and found to be apparently of earthly origin, etc.
It's just a scheme.
I'm waiting for somebody to proclaim the Shroud was made of polyester, thereby disproving both radiocarbon dating and the religious relic theories.
BUMP!
The 2 major reasons it's wrong is because: (1) they cut the sample from a repaired section of the shroud, or (2) samples were not representative of the cloth due to lower vanillin.