For some reason, I’ve been really stressed the last few days, to the point where even minor things are upsetting me. I can only conclude that I’m trying to do too much at once, and try to scale back on the intellectual bits and pieces that I’m working on. I find I tend to stress if I’m doing too many new-and-scary things at once. It’s energizing, but at a certain point it becomes overwhelming.
I’m also without my loom (the parts still haven’t come in yet), and I’ve gotten absolutely no exercise (damn bronchitis), so I don’t have that to relax me. I should spend more time winding my warp or something. Hopefully the bronchitis will be gone by the weekend (cross fingers) and I can get out for a couple of short rides. It’ll be good for my mood, and I really need to start training soon.
I figured out the answer to my puzzle, which is both embarrassingly obvious and potentially extremely interesting. When you skip in the threading, you essentially rearrange the vertical part of the tie-up to take every other row. When you skip in the treadling, you (effectively) rearrange the horizontal part of the tie-up to take every other column. So when you skip in both, you first rearrange the vertical part of the tie-up, then rearrange the rows, giving you a new twill. That’s sort of hand-wavy, but I finally understand. I’m developing a better understanding of how treadling, threading, and tie-up work, too.
I am tempted to start work on some mathematical transformations of tie-up to see if there are interesting properties in the diagrams – but I suspect the answers, while intellectually gratifying, will have nothing to do with the practical matter of weaving good cloth. It’s just that when I see a matrix, I just *have* to play around with it!
Got $250 more in donations for AIDS Lifecycle! So far I’ve raised $1745, which is pretty good considering I haven’t started my big push for donations yet.
Gotta run and get some research done – phone interview this morning, at 9:30.
