Simulation

I have been percolating ideas all day today, going from Bonnie Inouye’s Exploring Multishaft Design to Sharon Alderman’s Mastering Weave Structures to about a zillion issues of Weaver’s Magazine, in search of interesting ideas.  I found quite a few, enough that I felt at a loss for how to proceed.

So I decided to go back to basics.  The core element of this particular piece, the one I’m designing the rest of the dress around, is the double-happiness ribbon (assuming I can get it working).  So I took the draft, printed it out multiple times, and pinned it as a ribbon down the muslin dress.  That gave me an idea of how it would look (LOVE it), and from there I could start designing the rest of the pattern.

The first thing I realized was that the pattern should either be significantly larger or significantly smaller in scale than the double-happiness symbols, otherwise they clash.  I tried going smaller, simulating what would happen if I threaded up straight draw, and got this result with the eternity knots/hearts draft:

Do click on the photo for the larger version, and zoom in so you can see the pattern clearly; it’s worth a look.

Based on this simulation, I think the eternity knot – heart pattern is too “busy” – it distracts from the double-happiness ribbon.  It’s possible that by toning down the contrast on the pattern it could still work – but I’d really have to weave samples to be sure.  It might work in a white silk warp and cream cashmere weft, for example, with most of the contrast coming from the distinction between the glossy and matte fibers.  But on first glance, it looks too busy to me.

So tomorrow and this coming week I’ll play with other options…being able to print at the right scale is wonderful!  It’s saving me a lot of time testing things out.  Obviously it doesn’t look exactly like the finished piece, but at least I can get a rough idea.