Since I’ve come down with a cold, which makes lengthy bike rides inadvisable, I’ve been working on the weaving project. In addition to my Photoshop simulations, I’ve wound five 12-yard bouts on my sectional beam using my new-to-me AVL Warping Wheel. Thank all the myriad gods, it is going on flat, smooth, and with near-perfect tension. At least, it appears to be. We’ll find out (she said grimly) when I start weaving.
I have also been working a bit more on potential patterns in Fiberworks PCW. At some point I may do a more systematic exploration, but I’ve been feeling a bit fuzzy-headed today (that cold is really annoying), so here’s what I’ve done so far:
I like the very fluid look in the bottom left, but am also attracted to the strong geometrics in the top right. What’s a girl to do? (Why, try out MORE patterns!)
More seriously, at this point all I have to figure out is the threading. Obviously the threading is not completely independent of treadling and tie-up (at least if you want a specific effect), but once I set the scale and pattern of the threading to something that pleases me, I can get very different-looking shawls depending on how I do the tie-up and treadling. As Bonnie says, threading and treadling determine the scale and shape of the patterns, the tie-up “colors it in”.
Speaking of which, Bonnie was kind enough to tell me what was wrong with my previous tie-up. The 24-shaft twill tie-up needs to “parse” into 4-end twills – so, 1/3, 2/2, 3/1, 1/1/1/1, etc. all added together. What you can’t have is something like a 3/3 or something similar. As soon as I changed the tie-up, the long floats went away. Magic! I’ll remember that for the future.
Finally, may I present this stunning photo that chance offered me today? I call it, “Cat on priceless handwoven shawl”. 🙂
I think Sweetheart would call that “Priceless feline on warm bit of cloth, with fringe.”
Having known a few cats in my time… ;>