Two flame drafts

Work continues to be super busy – I have two extremely demanding projects and am monitoring a third – and the path to homeownership seems to be paved with last-minute snafus, so not a lot of creative time.  I did, however, manage to crank out two drafts:

(Ignore the spots in the background design; it’s actually plain weave, but the resizing is adding what looks like dots.  Click through to the large image to see how it really looks.)

Here’s the other one:

(Spots in the background are also an artifact of resizing; click through to the larger image.)

I chose an advancing twill threading because I wanted to create images of flames, but I needed the images to be larger than I could get out of straight draw.  Advancing the twill threading gives a blurred enlargement of what’s in the liftplan – which, for fire, is just perfect.  I did two versions, one in broken twills and one in broken twill/plain weave.  The broken twill/plain weave one needs some work, as there are some unsightly floats in the liftplan which translate to unsightly floats in the fabric.  But it does give me a general idea.

Why broken twill and plain weave, when the image is so much sharper (and the sett simpler) with all broken twills?  Because I want a super lightweight fabric, for which plain weave is better.  Fortunately they can both be woven on the same threading, so I can try both.

This is not the final draft, just a doodle – but it does provide a nice proof of concept.  One thing that will need to change is the orientation of the flames – since the fabric will most likely be hung on the bias, the flames will need to go diagonally.  Not a problem, just need to change the direction of the line.

Our home loan was finally issued yesterday, so closing should proceed on schedule today.  If all goes well, the deed will be registered today, and we’ll finally own our first house!!  I’m totally jazzed.  Can’t wait to get those keys.