Beyond pattern and background

Yesterday I was reading up on profile and drafts and blocks, and started wondering what would happen if you used more than two structures in the profile draft.  Obviously you wouldn’t be able to use weaving software to handle it, since weaving software only gives you two choices (black or white), but I thought the idea was intriguing enough to investigate.  Lo and behold, it is totally possible to use more than two structures, and while the resulting profile “drawdown” needs to be generated manually, this is not too difficult if you use Photoshop to copy and paste each line of the “treadling” sequence.  Then you can use block substitution in weaving software to generate the draft.

This is sufficiently interesting that I may submit it as a Complex Weavers 2012 Seminars teaching proposal…I think there is enough “meat” there to do a two-hour seminar (at least!).  That means I need to do some more investigation before submitting the proposal (deadline May 15) – basically a “proof-of-concept” that the method works and is interesting enough to warrant further discussion.  The primary hurdle I’m running across is selecting the structures – ideally, they need to have “clean” interfaces, and that is proving tricky.  So I will have to explore things further before writing up any proposal.

Meanwhile, my to-do list is piling up.  I am currently committed to:

• Finish, write up, and ship Kodachrome to Handwoven
• Write five articles for Handwoven
• Put together a class (or three) for Weavolution
• 2 sets of samples for Complex Weavers Study Groups

and have the following other projects in the queue:

• Update website with Kodachrome, doubleweave shawl pages
• Revamp weaving section of website
• Fix mangle
• Devore sampler
• Finish and document cross-dyeing samples
• Put together and experiment with silk-screening, stamping, and stenciling fabrics

Ten projects is way too many, so I think I will break it up into an immediate to-do list, and a “backlog” of things that I’d like to get to sometime, but which aren’t urgent (like fixing the mangle).

Today the yarn for the devore samples arrives! so I will start warping up tonight.  It’s been a tough week generally (one of my uncles passed away on Tuesday), so I need something to cheer me up.  I will be flying out to Maryland next weekend for his memorial service.