DESIGN PREPARATIONS CONTINUE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Now I am working with the kind of drawdown that might eventually become the basis of my designing: alternating blocks.

In the past, when I alternated blocks I simply went from the first two treadles, to the second two treadles, the third two, and so on. This time I decided to try something different.

I decided to use the set of treadles that would result in a diagonal line of blocks with red weft. I entered these into the draft, leaving spaces in between to accommodate the alternate shot.

Then I proceeded block by block to chooses the treadles for the second treadle that would carry the blue weft. My basis for choice was simply what looked best for each block.

Except for the one problem with the doubled treadle, not bad.

Treadling, however, would be extraordinarily difficult to keep track of because of the required binder threads. For each block group I would treadle for the binder those treadles which are not used for pattern wefts in the block group.

For example, here is how the first group would be treadled:

5 3 7 4 5 6 7 8 5 3 7 4

Bold represents pattern wefts, italic represents binder. Using two colors for pattern wefts means that three shuttles would be in play. Should I be insane enough to use two colors for the binder wefts………..

Related Posts:
Alternating Treadles, Different Tabbies
Preparing to Design Next Crackle Piece

“Design Preparations Continue” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on August 5, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.