I’ve finally settled on a profile draft that I think I like:
It’s got enough visual complexity to be interesting (yes, I know, I like things maybe a little too complicated, but since I’m the creator I get to do whatever I want 🙂 ), while retaining a pleasing symmetry. I don’t know yet how “treadling” variations will come out, but I’m not convinced it matters for what I want to accomplish. I may very well weave all three shawls using the same profile draft – there are so many other variables that keeping the same overall pattern is probably not a bad idea.
Here are some of the things I want to tweak:
- which yarns show on top (some parts with warp A and weft A on top, other areas with warp B and weft B showing, A and B, B and A – you get the idea)
- colors – I’m thinking one with yellow and green wefts, one with all black, and one with a single weft gradually shading between fuchsia and turquoise, or maybe even two wefts gradually shading to fuchsia to turquoise, but in different directions. (The latter sounds too complex to be visually appealing, but I can’t visualize what it would look like, so I gotta try it!)
- layer interchange – whether the interchanges are “clean” or whether there are sections of stitched doubleweave. There’s an additional option of having them weave single-layered cloth for portions, but I’m not sure whether I can do that attractively in this draft, so I may just do it in samples.
- different weave structures on top and bottom – 1/3 twill on top and 2/2 twill on bottom, for example, for a totally different look on the back
And here are some of the computer drafting techniques I want to try:
- Block substitution using a profile draft
- Pat’s technique – using Photoshop to create a drawdown, and the “Fabric Analysis” tool in Fiberworks PCW to render it into a draft
- Using Photoshop and Alice Schlein/Bhakti Ziek’s technique for using presets to design the liftplan
- Inventing techniques to simulate four-color doubleweave in Photoshop, starting from a profile draft
Whew! That’s a lot to get done, especially right before the wedding – but then, unlike the wedding dress, I don’t actually have to finish this before the wedding, so no time pressure.
Today I’m going to dye the yarn, which I wound into skeins yesterday on my new Crazy Monkey triple-skein electric skeinwinder. (The skeinwinder, incidentally, works beautifully and I enthusiastically recommend it to anyone considering buying one – fast, quiet, and very well-designed.) Then I’m going to tapestry lessons at 10am, and if the skeins are dry when I get back, I’ll start winding them onto cones for beaming-on.
Wedding-wise, my goal for the weekend is to finalize the ceremony structure (so the wedding programs can be printed) and to start selecting ceremony music. I think the only music that really matters is the processional and the recessional, for the rest I can give general instructions to the harpist and leave it there.
