Friday, May 1, 2009

MOTIFS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

CRACKLE DRAFT SHOWING MOTIF UNITS IN YELLOW

4-30-2009 03-44-27

It’s been a while since I talked about how I plan to weave the sample scarf I am doing all this dyeing and insane cone-winding for.  It will be again in Zielinski’s 8-crackle-blocks-on-4-shafts idea.  I will be treadling one treadle after another, with no tabbies.  One of those treadles will be used to create a motif out of which I will build up a design.

In the drawdown photo six groups of six treadles each are shown.  With each group, the yellow is used on a different treadle.  The treadles used for the yellow are indicated in the photo. 

The arrows point only to the line where the motif unit appears;  they do not necessarily point directly to that unit.  The arrows that do point directly to a motif unit are the arrows for treadles 2, 3 and 6. 

It is from these units that I will build the motifs. 

When I looked at this draft after copying it with SnagIt as a PNG file, it looked like the motifs on treadles 1, 5 and 6 were the only ones that predominated.  The motifs on the other treadles seemed less strong.  This goes along with what I had found in my sample weaving.

Copied onto my blog, however, all the motifs seem equally distinct.  One of these is lying!   Which one?  I will have to weave them to find out.

But this does give me a starting place and a referral point.

NOTE ON LAST BOMBYX SKEIN

The loose yarn kept getting longer and started going into the first half of the skein.  So I cut cut the yarn and finished winding from the other end.  The winding went absolutely fine…….done in less than five minutes……….. And only one knot in this cone!

Now I am winding pirns.  There is a slight hiccup every time a knot passes through the tensioner.  Sigh.

Related Posts: 
   Back to the Dyepots
   8 Crackle Blocks on 4 Shafts
   Crackle Shawl—The Motifs


Motifs” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on May 1, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

2 comments:

Dorothy said...

You ask will you have to weave to find out how the motifs look - don't you always find this with weaving software? I find it useful for an indication of what might happen but it doesn't tell you how the yarn behaves and whether the sett / ppi gives a result that looks as it does on screen.

I get the impression that weaving with silk needs extra time and patience - thanks for telling us about your experiences in handling the tram silk.

Peg in South Carolina said...

Dorothy, your answer is right on target. Weaving software for me is most helpful in dealing with technical issues. Threading errors, for example. What specifically happens when various shafts are raised--combine this with using SnagIt to record and make notes. It is easier to do this kind of thing with software than by raising shafts, unless, perhaps, I was to photograph, but using the computer makes more sense. But for what the fabric itself is going to look like in real life, software only gives you the most general of clues. To this you add your imagination, your experience, and then you go weave and find out!
As for the silk, remember I am working with 60/2 silk. Silk itself is very strong (though not the tram). It is the fineness of the yarn that is the real issue. The tram is a different story.