8 CRACKLE BLOCKS ON 4 SHAFTS: HOW NOT TO THREAD?

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Things had been going quite well in terms of designing the green crackle project.  Or so I thought. 

Over the weekend I cleaned up paperwork from my last project.  Got everything nicely organized and put away.  Got the current paperwork nicely organized in its folder.

Then I went to work on the green crackle project.  In the process of that cleanup, I had thrown out stuff.  Important stuff.

DISCARDING AND RECOVERING

I had thrown out the paper copy of the threading for the last crackle project.  Not a problem?  After all I can just print it out again.  Oh no. I had marked with pen the various blocks. That was the valuable part, the part that was not on the computer.  I used this to work out the threadings for the current green crackle project.

So I looked for the threading block draft for this green crackle project I am working on. I had thrown out the paper copy, but I knew it would be on the computer.  What’s more,  there were no handwritten notes on it. So what was on the computer would do just fine.
I opened the file that all this stuff is stored in.  Not on the computer.

Thank heavens I am recording stuff in my E-sketchbook.  I went to it and there was the threading block design.  So I used that to create one in the weaving software and saved it.  I made sure I saved it and saved it in the right place.   And printed it out.

PROBLEMS WITH THE BLOCKS

Then I started examining the threading against the blocks and discovered that I had made an error in the block order.  I could understand how I made the error. I had simply failed to reverse part of the left side of the threading block draft to reflect the right side. That was an easy mistake to make and easy to correct. So I corrected it.  

PROBLEMS WITH THE THREADINGS?

But then as I was rechecking the threading units in the blocks I started seeing some strange things. Some things I did not understand.  Something seemed to be wrong, but what?  And how could anything be wrong, since everything seemed to be working out just fine?
So I checked out the threading notes for 8 blocks on 6 shafts in Zielinski’s book (Volume 8 in his Master Weaver series.  There I discovered that my blocks were not always the same as his blocks.  This is copied from my E-sketchbook:



As I said, I see nothing wrong with my blocks.  I don’t see why I can’t continue with those threadings.  They worked fine in the last piece.  On paper they seem to be working fine in this piece.

NEXT ON THE AGENDA
Still, I need to redo the draft in terms of Zielinski’s threading units and see what gives.  So, time out from dyeing and back to work on the threading.

Related Posts: 
   Multi-Pocket Folders
   E-Sketchbook
   Preparing to Design Next Crackle Piece

“8 Crackle Blocks on 4 Shafts: How Not to Thread?” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on September 15, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.