THREADING PROBLEMS YET AGAIN

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Before I started winding bobbins I decided I needed to do just a bit more testing of this warp.  I wove two blocks.  Whoops.

PROBLEM ONE
I learned that I cannot do the kind of treadling with six blocks that I had intended. When I get to using treadles five and six as the pattern treadles, I cannot use the same pattern of treadles for the binders that I used on the first four pattern treadles. What I will do is keep the original treadling for the first four blocks and when I start blocks five and six, figure out which treadles will work as the binder treadles.
Why didn’t this show up in the software?  Probably I didn’t know what I was looking for.

PROBLEM TWO
There are, yes there are, threading errors!  I fussed and fumed for a bit.  Well, actually, for quite a bit.  Then I began to wonder if there was a way I could correct these errors by either removing heddles or adding repair heddles, depending on what I found when I started investigating.
These threading problems all occur when, and only when, I change blocks.  This means that I do not quite understand the process of changing blocks in terms of the threading.  It also means that when I check the drawdown for errors in the future on this kind of crackle, I need to watch especially carefully those places between blocks.

THREE THREADING ERRORS
I was glad there were only three!

1. In the case of the first error, the last thread of one block was not on the correct shaft.  I added a repair heddle to that shaft, removed the errant warp end and rethreaded it into the repair heddle, sleyed it and pinned it to the woven fabric.
2. The second error involved simply removing a heddle and removing the warp end.  That solution will cause me to have to resley everything from there to the right side of the loom.  And I will have to tie on the whole warp. Still, that is not as bad as rethreading!
3. And the third error, like the first, involved adding a repair heddle to another shaft, remove the warp end from the incorrect heddle and thread it through the correct one.

Before I made these corrections, by the way, I checked VERY CAREFULLY the drawdown
So now I can cut off a small bit of warp on the left side of the loom and a larger bit on the right side and prepare for some re-sleying.  Again.

Related Posts:  

Re-Threading
Re-threading: Good News and Bad News

“Threading Problems Yet Again” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 26, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

PLAYING WITH THE SOFTWARE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

In the sample weaving that I did at the beginning of the warp, I had tried different treadlings.  The one I saw as having the most possibilities was the last treadling.  Before I start working in earnest on the warp, I decided to work with the software.  And here is the result as displayed in a page from my e-sketchbook.

The image at the top of the page is about half the warp, reduced so as to give a sense of the fabric.

The second image is a blown-up detail to give a sense of what is actually going on.  The red wefts are the pattern wefts and they are twice as large as the other wefts, the orange and the blue, which are the binding wefts. 

The tieup and treadling are to the left.  And finally a photo of the actual fabric.

I used a black warp in the software, but I used the same colors in the weft as I did in the sampling. 

How much more garish the drawdown appears than the actual fabric.  The black warp plays into the garishness, but even so……….   It is really difficult, though probably not impossible, to get the kind of subtlety the fabric displays in the software.  The most obvious problem here is that the impact of the smaller binding wefts is far greater in the fabric than it would appear in the computer drawdown. That is why I would never trust choice of colors to the software.  Only actual sampling will work there.

I realize now that this used only 4 of the possible 6 treadles that I have available in the tieup. Looking at the tieup on the reproduced page will reveal that. So the next thing to do is to create a version with all 6 treadles next.

Related Post:  E-Sketchbook

“Playing with the Software” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 18, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

CHECKING THE THREADING IN THE SOFTWARE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

And it does not look promising.  At this point, just looking at

1. The threading – noting the blocks and finding some definite problems and some possible ones

2. The fabric as it appears on the computer screen – finding definite problems

Here is a view of part of the fabric as it appears, treadled in the Italian manner.  This is the treadling I am strongly favoring right now:

How many threading errors can you find?  Two of them really stand out, but there are others.  Why, why, why did I not do this before I even started to thread?  Truly, I am not stupid!  I guess I simply did not realize just how well the software could display the smallest of errors if I used it well.

And here is a clear threading error illustrated in the threading—actually a small cluster of threading errors covering 12 ends:

If you can’t find it in the threading, look at the drawdown and the error is clearly visible.  This, by the way, is on the RIGHT side of the warp, where I did not think there were any errors.  I had seen errors only on the left side…………..

Of course, once I am done with this, I will have to check all this against the actual fabric and threading.  It is possible that

1. I corrected some of the threadings as I did the threading

2. That I simply did not see some of the threading errors in the woven cloth. Alerted, I will now probably see them.

It seems likely at this point (not yet finished with the analysis) that I am going to rethread the whole thing. 

Well, I am not done yet.  And tomorrow we leave for a weekend in Charlotte.  That will get me away from all of thlis and I will return ready to tackle anything that needs to be tackled.  Or, at that is the hope!

Related Post:  Process versus Product

“Checking the Threading in the Software” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on August 19, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

WHY IS THE BLACK TABLE GREEN?

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

GREEN IS GOOD

Yes, the table in reality is actually black.  Why is it green in the photo?  Because I fiddled with Paint Shop Pro to get the colors right.  This meant ramping up the green and also, a bit, the yellow;  and lessening the red.  Doing this affects the whole photo, so the table got to be green as well. 

How to avoid this?  Yes, it is possible.  Select the skeins out from the background, create a new layer, and work only with that on the color.  I have not mastered the skill of selection and do not feel the need to.  This photo is not for professional publication, after all!

So, what was the problem that led me to doing this?  The green yarn on the left wasn’t quite bright enough.  The yarn in the middle did not have enough of a green cast and the yarn on the right was way to red.

The results are not perfect, though there is definite improvement.  The color of the green yarn is accurate.  The red is still a tiny bit too red.  The brown is quite off the mark. It definitely needs to be more of an avocado, though a dulled avocado.

TOO MUCH REDDISH YARN

But there is another problem, and this one is a bit more serious.  The yarn on the right was to be my main binder yarn so I dyed three skeins of it.  But it turned out way too red for that purpose.  The middle skein turned out exactly right for that purpose.  Clearly, when I moved from dyeing small sample skeins to dyeing 100 gram skeins, something went amiss in my calculations.

MORE DYEING TO DO? 

Based on what I saw, I changed the dye calculations and came up with the middle skein. I am not going to dye any more of this color until I have started the weaving and can get a better estimate of how much more yarn I will need.

I would, however, like to dye a smaller amount of a green that is between the brightest green and the avocado green and also a smaller amount of quite a bright version of the red.

BACK TO SLEYING THAT REED…..

Not to mention winding skeins onto cones………..

“Why is the Black Table Green?”  was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on July 14, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

S&W: ANOTHER WAY TO USE COLOR

Posted by Peg in South Carolina





To the right is a better image of the reduced sized draft.  Even so, this is not as good as others I have used.  I think that the highly contrasting red must create color rendition problems? 

Microsoft Publisher is clearly fine if I want to include a full-scale draft.  But the more I reduce the image, the more problematic the image becomes.  Even the actual colors are not the same.

I am looking into other publishing software programs……..

Related Post:    S&W Treadling and Color

"S&W: Another Way to Use ColorS&W: Another Way to Use Color was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on March 16, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

S&W TREADLING AND COLOR

Posted by Peg in South Carolina
 
IMAGE PROBLEMS WITH MICROSOFT PUBLISHER
It has become clear to me that Microsoft Publisher has a definite problem with images, or at least images created with weaving software.  Just below is the image on the right hand side of the above page, saved as a png file and brought into my blogging software (Windows Live Writer).  It looks perfectly fine--just like the JPEG files I bring into my blog.



I looked at Publisher to see if there was a way I could export images into its pages instead of copying and pasting.  The only thing I could find was an Insert picture function.  That is pretty much how I bring images into my blogging software.  But when I tried it with Publisher, there was only the slightest improvement in reproduction.

I do not have the latest version of Publisher, but when I checked, that version has a graphics manager which, from its description, sounded like it might handle my problem. But then I found this disclaimer:

If you want to insert a picture from another program, you can copy and paste it. The pasted picture might not appear the way you expected, but copying and pasting may be the best way to use a picture from a program that is not part of the 2007 Microsoft Office system. (Go here to read more).

Soo…..it looks like I live with the problem or find another program, a non-Microsoft program…….

Related Post:   More Summer and Winter Treadling

"S&W Treadling and Color” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on March 15, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

CUTTING AND PASTING TO EXTEND THREADING

Posted by Peg in South Carolina 

I did the cutting and pasting in Microsoft Publisher, the software I have been using for this crackle journal.  It is not the best job of pasting but it might actually be useful for me to see exactly where the divisions are.

I can see cutting and pasting weaving drafts as a useful tool for designing complex threadings.  The technique could be done in any software that allows cutting and pasting as well as rotating and flipping of images.

Related Post:  Color and Crackle Curves

“Cutting and Pasting to Extend Threading” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on March 5, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

BEGINNING 8-SHAFT CRACKLE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

For now I am done with 6-shaft crackle. I will return to it (and also to 4-shaft crackle) when I have gone through some of the basics of 8-shaft crackle.

8-shaft crackle has never been something that interested me.  It seems to be used primarily as a way of creating all-over designs involving triangular shapes.  I am hoping that this investigation will show me that there are other possibilities for this version of the crackle structure.

To produce a clear threading in my publishing software, I had to spread the theading over a bit to the left page (The gray vertical line on the left side indicates the page split.  But since the pages face each other, this will not be a problem at least when viewed in the software.  To accommodate printing, I would have to make some changes.

“Beginning 8-Shaft Crackle” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on February 23, 2010. ©2010 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

SOMETHING-A-DAY PROJECT

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

OTHER BLOGGERS

For a while, now, I have been fascinated by the daily project phenomenon on blogs.  I have seen this in art blogs, with people painting or drawing a picture a day.  I have seen it on photography blogs where people fully finish a photo a day. I have seen it on fiber blogs where people do a small surface design piece each day.  And I have even seen it on weaving blogs.

I have followed Janet Dawson’s Scarf-a-day blog with great interest and admiration.  Though this doesn’t mean that she puts on a warp a day, it still has been a very ambitious (and successful!) project for her.

I have also followed Tommye Scanlin’s tapestry-a-day on her blog Works in Progress. She doesn’t actually weave a whole tapestry each day.  Rather, she put on a long but narrow tapestry warp and then each day wove in a building.  She has been recording her progress in the side bar of her blog. Tommye called her piece a tapestry diary for the year 2009. 

If I had a second loom, I could put on a long crackle warp and weave a sample a day.  But, I don’t have another loom.  So, what could I do?

A friend suggested I already have a project not unlike this since I do something weaving-related every day.  But I want to do something that will notch my growth as a weaver up a bit more.

SOFTWARE TO THE RESCUE

Weaving software, I thought.  At first I kind of cringed since fiddling with weaving software is definitely not weaving.  Then about a week ago I woke up with the brilliant idea (ideas in the middle of the night always seem to be “brilliant”…….!)of exploring crackle drafts.  So, here is what I am going to do.

A NEW E-SKETCHBOOK

I have started called a new E-sketchbook called “A Crackle Draft Project 2010.”  I have put a shortcut to it on my computer desktop.  Each day (for five days a week) I will put in a new crackle draft. 

I will begin with the very simplest of drafts, a straight draw 4-shaft crackle threading with standard twill tie-up.  I will explore each day a new way of developing and altering this very simple draft.  Some explorations will be very simple and take very little time.  Others will be more complex. 

I will move from there to other threading possibilities and then on to six- and eight-shaft threadings of all kinds.  Everything is subject to investigation: threading, tie-up, treadling, color, texture….

WIF FILES

At the same time, I have started a folder on my computer called by the same name and will include in that folder all the drafts as WIF files that I will place in my E-sketchbook. I will try to remember with each entry in my E-sketchbook to include the location of the draft in my computer folder.
If I save these drafts as WIF files, why, then, bother putting them in an E-Sketchbook? 
In the E-Sketchbook I can make comments. 

COMPUTER DRAFTS AND PENCIL SKETCHES

There is, of course, a limit to what can be accomplished in terms of design with weaving software.  But I can think of them as the painter’s equivalent of pencil sketches.  Many artists have kept reams of pencil or pen-and-ink sketches they made, either for fun or as preparations for a final painting.  Weaving software provides the equivalent kind of experience in weaving design.

Related Posts:  
Sketchbooks for Weavers
E-Sketchbook
Printing Out E-Sketchbooks

"Something-A-Day Project” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on January 1, 2010. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

LAST GREEN SAMPLES

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

When I looked at the first two sets of green samples, I saw some gaps I was interested in filling in.  These are the results.

The orange doubled loop visible at the top of the photo is what I used to loop through a skein (one through each skein) to make it easy to dip the individual skeins in and out of each of its Mason jar dye baths. 

NUMBERING THE SKEINS

The piece of paper with the number 2 written on it is a piece of masking tape. After I removed a skein from the dye and rinsed it I put a piece of masking tape on the doubled loop with an identifying number from 1-7.  These numbers referred to the formulas I used for the dyeing.

Numbering them makes it much easier for me to know which finished skein goes with which formula.  I don’t always have to do this because sometimes it is very clear.  In dye pots of yellow and blue, where I simply varied the amount of blue in the five or seven dye pots, it is very easy to distinguish one from another.  But these recipes were more diverse and complex.  I did not trust my eyes.

STARTING THE NEUTRAL SAMPLINGS

Since there were only five greens I wanted to try, I had room for two more colors, so I started on the set of neutrals.

The two colors I am using in this set to achieve neutrals are yellow-green and red-violet.  The reddish one on the left has 45% red-violet.  The browner one next to it has only 24% red violet.  I had anticipated that it would take less than half of the red-violet to brown the green because red is a very strong color.  I didn’t realize that I would have to drop it down to 1/4 of the total mount.  Red is really a dominating color.

PHOTOGRAPHY NOTE

For those who notice (and care about) such things, I took the two photos on the same table in the same light.  In the top photo, the color of the table is pretty close to what it is in reality.  In the bottom photo, the color is much more yellow. 

This color cast happened because to correct the color balance for the skeins in my software, I had to move the color cast to cyan and to green.  This removed the excess reddish cast but it also removed the reddish cast from the table and so turned it into a yellow-brown.

Playing with lightness and saturation in the two photos also affected the tables differently.

There are ways of dealing with this problem, but they are time-consuming and, quite frankly, I don’t care what the table looks like in the photo!

Some time I might try white paper, but I’m not sure I would like the strong contrast between background and skeins that would happen.  Of course, trying it is the only way to find out!

Related Post:   Two Sets of Greens Done

“Last Green Samples“ was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 2, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

 

REVERSING THE WEFT COLORS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I decided to see what would happen if I reversed the weft colors, weaving green where brown had originally been and vice versa. Note that I am still keeping the groups of blocks separated by blank green lines.



On the left, the treadling goes green, brown, green, brown…….repeat
On the right, the treadling goes brown, green,brown, green…..repeat.

Perhaps I can use this ability to reverse colors somehow in the actual weaving.  But first will have to figure out how to make a smooth transition from green leading to brown leading.

COLOR AND WEAVING SOFTWARE

When I was preparing these drafts for the blog, I had the hardest time getting the colors right in my weaving software.  It wasn’t that I wanted a particular green or brown.  It is that I wanted the green and brown to be the same in each drawdown. I had tried to do this by eyeball/memory but that really was not working. 

I finally realized that I could double-click on the brown in the left hand draft to raise the color information section and figure out the numbers for the color.  There are two sets of numbers.  The first set are the numbers for Hue, Saturation, and Luminescence.  The second set are the numbers for Red, Green and Blue.

I wrote down the six numbers for the brown I used in the draft on the left. Then I went to the other draft, double-clicked on the brown, and yes, the numbers were different…..  So I changed the numbers.  Miracle of miracles, the right brown appears!

The greens, however, still look different.  But all the numbers for the green are the same in both drafts.  Perhaps it is the changed juxtaposition that affects the colors of the greens.


“Reversing the Weft Colors“ was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on September 30, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

WEAVING SOFTWARE AND FINDING ERRORS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Weaving software is wonderful for spotting errors. I enter the threading and treadling and the drawdown magically appears.

One kind of error that the software shows up on its own is a check for floats. When I click on the check-for-floats menu, the software not only will show me the number of floats that are more than I want (say no greater than 3), but it will also highlight exactly where those floats are. It will do this for both warp threads and weft threads.

But for most of the errors I have to rely on my own eyes. And sometimes my eyes do not see. This was the case with a current drawdown I have been working with, a drawdown intended to be the beginnings of the final design for my next crackle project. Here it is.

I have labeled the threading blocks at the top of the draft.

As I was in the process of labeling them, an interesting thing happened. I got to block H and saw that there were two more threading blocks. Wait a minute, I thought, isn’t H the same as block 8? Being arithmetic challenged, I had to work this out on my fingers. Yes, block H is the 8th block.

I knew the last block was supposed to be an A block. I wanted to make sure that I had the join right at the repeat. But what about this extra block between H and A?

I scrutinized the drawdown. There I found that the drawdown of threading block D was the same as the mysterious second-to-last threading block. Not absolutely precise because the threading is oh-so-slightly different. But the same, none the less. So for purposes of easy recognition I labeled it D-1 and saved it.

Yes, I saved the darn thing. I did not want to forget. Precisely, I did not want to forgot that I am made in such a way that to find problems I have to do something more active than just looking. I have to do something that will force me to see. Getting the drawdown into another form which allowed me to label blocks was the thing I needed to do.

Then I went back to the software and redid the drawdown. I had to redo it three times before I got it right. Why? Because I got confused as to which way the threading went as I deleted warp threads, left or right. I learned that the easiest way to start again is just to do a close without saving, then bring it up again. Finally I got it right.

Well, not totally right. The join between threading block H and threading block A needs some attention….

I wonder if others have this problem of seeing, of really seeing.

Related Post:
Crackle with Floats of Four (or More)
I Need a Proofreader

“Weaving Software and Finding Errors” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on July 17, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

TREADLING WITH FLOATS OF 4: 8 CRACKLE BLOCKS ON 4 SHAFTS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Here are some drawdowns for treadlings.

I have kept the images small in order to give a better feel of what the fabric might look like woven.

INTRODUCTION

I have taken the threading drawdown I designed earlier for getting 4-thread floats instead of 3-thread floats. The basic threading I worked with was a threading that allows me to get 8 blocks on 4 shafts.

The warp is all one color, blue. The block on the very left, however, has green warps. This is the same block as the block on the far right. It is there to test the join between first and last block. It is green so that I don’t forget that this block is a repeat.

Using that drawdown, I tried some treadling variations I am particularly fond of. Well, the first one I am not particularly fond of, but I use it because it shows the block structure so clearly.

THE TREADLING VARIATIONS

Treadling #1 is overshot- style treadling. I have used red throughout. *Tabby is required but not indicated in the draft.

Treadling #2 is treadling on opposites. In each block I have used green for the first weft color, and rose pink for the second. I repeated the sequence twice. In the repeat, it is the rose that appears as the first weft color and green for the second. The result is the appearance of more blocks than there actually are. Theoretically this should not require *tabby, but I’m not sure.

Note: there are no such things as genuine opposites on this threading, despite the fact that the tie-up makes it look like there is. One result of this is that there are no genuine tabbies.

Treadling #3 is a kind of pseudo summer&winter treadling. For one block I alternate treadles 1 and 2, then I move on to alternate treadles 2and 3 and so forth. As in #2, I have alternated green and red weft threads. Like #1, the long blue warp floats clearly visible in the draft mean that weaving this requires *tabby.

Treadling #4 is polychrome treadling---i.e., treadling the six treadles and repeating. I used green for the one treadle in a given group and red for the others. Tabby is not required.

MY PERSONAL FAVORITE

My favorite of these, at least on paper, is #3. I had not realized how much interplay of weft and warp there is in this treadling. The interplay is there in my current weaving, but it is not nearly as vibrant and demanding in its attention. The idea of weaving *tabby does not, however, please me, for I would be adding yet another shuttle into the mix, and I would probably use 120/2 silk to make it as little obvious as possible.

On the other hand, I really like what I did here. That is the same treadling as #4. The same treadling as my current piece. Hard to believe! It was just a different way I used the colors as I treadled.

3 FLOATS VERSUS 4 FLOATS

Extending the weft pattern floats from 3 to 4 seems to have no impact on the drawdown. Had I done this with the 3-float drafts I have been using, I am sure no one would have noticed any real difference. This leaves two questions in my mind:

1. Why bother with this?
2. Why not jump to 5- or even 10-float drafts to see what happens?

A NOTE ON TABBY

In this structure there is no true tabby (unlike ordinary 4-shaft crackle). So one has to think in terms of binder threads and get creative. Zielinski is of enormous help here in suggesting some possible solutions.

A NOTE ON THE IMAGES

Those of you who have clicked on the above images to see them larger will have learned that there are not four images but only one. What I did was to copy and paste these images into a page of my E-sketchbook (kept in Microsoft Publisher) and once pasted, to arrange them as I wanted them. Then I locked them into position. I then copied the locked group and pasted it into this blog post. On my E-sketchbook page I can unlock the group any time I want. I assume that any of the publishing programs would allow you to do this.

Related Posts:
Crackle with Floats of Four (or More)
Summer and Winter and…….Crackle (of course)
Crackle Treadled as Overshot

“Treadling with Floats of 4: 8 Crackle Blocks on 4 Shafts” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on July 1, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina.

WEAVING SOFTWARE LUST

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Someone on the WeaveTech list talked about a piece of weaving software she had purchased recently.  It is called Pointcarre and you can learn about it here.  Also check this site, PointcarreUSA. To read an interesting and illustrated piece published by MCADVision Magazine, go here.

I had heard of Pointcarre before but thought it was really for jacquard weavers or multi-(more than 8) shaft weavers. For  professional weavers whether they worked on their own or in industry. Not for someone like me.  But when I learned how it could be used both to design and show what the fabric would look like when woven, I developed severe software lust.

I quickly learned from the post on WeaveTech that you had to spend two to three days in New York City to learn how to use the program.  Then I knew, not only that the program was horribly expensive, but way beyond anything I needed or even wanted.  Still, seeing the phrase “photorealistic simulations” on their web site did not help this knowledge….  Did I mention that this photorealistic simulation includes the kind of yarn? Sigh.

But they do sell a CDRom of almost 4,000 weaves.  Reading the description suggests it might be useful even to a lowly 8-shaft weaver.  But when the website tells you to contact them to order it, I know it is way to expensive.  It is like expensive clothing, cars, and the like.  If I have to ask the price, I can’t afford it.

Besides, I know this program won’t get the color interactions right either.  I have to actually weave for that……….

“Weaving Software Lust” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on June 24, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

FABRIC SIMULATION/APPEARANCE

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I have not liked the way my weaving software represents the design of the fabric as it will look when woven. It is not just a matter of color interaction. The pattern wefts are never close enough together and so the image on the screen always looks a bit strange to me. So I went through a rather elaborate convolution with my weaving software to simulate what it would look like.

I have called this a simulation because I have made changes in the treadling that make the draft unweavable. Its only function is to create the right appearance.

What you see above is what I came up with. I was pleased.

But then I did this.

Here is how I did it:

1. I copied the draft
2. I pasted it into Paint Shop Pro
3. I saved it as a jpeg and edited it.
4. I opened Windows Live Writer and brought it into the page for this post.
5. In WLW, I enlarged it.

It so happens that I used a draft with a different order of treadling from the one I used in the first image. But even so, it is clear that producing an image of crackle more in keeping with what the woven fabric is going to look like is far easier than I had thought at first.

And so the title I have given to the image is deceiving. This is not really how the fabric appears in the software. It is how the fabric appears after copying the draft from the software into another program (in this case, Windows Live Writer), and then enlarging that image.

If I am not interested in editing the image in graphics software, I can simply copy the image into a Word document, perhaps the document I am keeping my records in for that particular project, and enlarge it there. Very simple.

I am thinking that doing doing this will be especially useful in drafts where there are few or no repeats in the threading design, and even more useful when the treadling of the blocks varies a great deal. This piece is only six inches wide and with only one repeat. My next piece may be 18” or more wide, probably with few repeats in the threading, if any. I am getting eager to move on to this piece, but there is still much to do.

Related Post:
Playing with Color
PixeLoom, Paint Shop Pro and Gradated Warps
Viewing Weaving Drafts

“Fabric Simulation/Appearance” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on June 22, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

THE MOTIF UNITS TREADLED

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

I have woven the first small part of the scarf, the part where I laid out the motif units. Compare this with the draft drawn up in weaving software:

It is helpful to know that in the actual fabric, the treadling is read from bottom to top; in the draft it is read from top to bottom. It is also helpful to know that I treadled two treadle units for each motif so that I could see what they looked like one on top of the other. And it is helpful to know that I treadled three groups of all red treadles between each group of motif units.

Juxtaposing draft and fabric shows more clearly than words possibly could the limitations of weaving software.

But………….

I now see just how clear a particular problem is, a problem I had thought not particularly important. This problem appears smack in the middle of the photo. It reveals itself in the motif unit on treadle four where one of the weft floats is just a bit longer than the others. But when I look for it on the draft itself, I cannot see it.

WHOOPS………………………………

CHECK THE THREADING…………………

I opened the original draft. The threading in that area does look strange. But no long float shows anywhere on treadle 4. Time to look at the heddles.

Sob…………….

Actually, time to make chocolate chip cookies for a dinner tonight. Sounds like as good excuse as any for procrastinating a bit. I need a fresh day and a clear head to deal with this.

Licking the bowl might help too?

Related Post:
Motifs
Threading Error Revisited
Threading Difficulties

“The Motif Units Treadled” was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on May 6, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

PLAYING WITH COLOR

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

A book I recently purchased is called Confident Color: An Artist’s Guide to Harmony, Contrast and Unity, by Nita Leland. I have enjoyed her earlier work and now am finding this book to be quite interesting. Or at least I find that it stimulates my thinking about what I might do with color in weaving. It is probably the photos in the book that are most important, but they are in the context of commentary, which is also helpful.

The picture at the top of this post I created in Paint Shop Pro, using a picture on page 44 as my inspiration. I used two processes. First I created the various squares and rectangles (but not the yellow not the little red square at the top right) with the rectangle tool and filled them with various colors using the flood fill tool. Then I did some blurring and applied some filters. Last I put in the yellow thin rectangle with its square at the end and then the dark red tiny little square at the top.

What is here is far less subtle than what is in the inspiring photo, but it gives me the general idea. The major issue, which I see only now since I have inserted it into this post, is that the yellow line should be farther down. There should also be a bit more pure black.

Despite the limitations of this interpretation, I still like it and think it would be possible to create a piece based on this idea. Not a literal interpretation, any more than this is a literal interpretation of the piece in Leland’s book.

What I am taken with is the use and placement of yellow and dark red. It could work in an art piece, but I think it could also work in fabric meant to be worn or used in furnishing. That would require repetition. But I would like to try it with crackle and see what I can do.

Here is one attempt with my weaving software:

The visual effect is far too much of a plaid and also the background colors are too spotty. The only colors which I want to stand out sharply are the black warp stripes and the bright red and yellow weft stripes. It is difficult for me to get this in the weaving software. But I could do better.

Of course, I have some other irons in the fire to deal with first.

"Playing with Color" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on January 19, 2009. ©2009 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

PIXELOOM, PAINT SHOP PRO AND GRADATED WARPS

Posted by Peg in South Carolina

Tien recently blogged how she combined her graphics program and her weaving program in order to get an idea of what the final woven product would look like. In her post, Some Color Mixing Surprises, she shows the latest of her experiments. In her post Photoshop Tricks, she gives some of the details of how she did it using Photoshop and Fiberworks PCW.

My graphics program is Paint Shop Pro XI. My weaving program is PixeLoom. Could I do the same thing? The answer is, yes, but not in quite the same way. That is to be expected considering Tien and I are using different programs.

First I opened PixeLoom and created a simple pointed twill, tromped as writ.

Here it is reduced in scale. The white is the warp; the black is the weft.

I then used my SnagIt screen capture program to copy and paste it as a new image into Paint Shop Pro. You can see that this image is not reduced in scale as much as the first image. I tried to find the size that would best create a good final image.

Like Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro has a magic wand selection tool. I used that to select the black areas (the weft). I copied the resulting image to the clipboard.

I then created a new image in Paint Shop Pro and filled it with a gradient. I pasted the image I had copied into this new gradient-filled image; I copied it specifically as a transparent selection. And here is what I got. Pretty cool!

I could do the same thing using only PixeLoom. But that would mean painstakingly selecting colors warp end by warp end. This is much faster. It is also much easier to play with the gradient, changing it till you get what you like.

I could use this same procedure for warp stripes. Instead of using the gradient feature of the program I would create stripes the color I wanted and the width I wanted. Again, these would be easy to change and play with until I got the effect I wanted.

Where, however, I think this process would really shine is with warp painting and even ikat. If I wanted to do a gradated warp, for example, I would create the gradient as a horizontal gradient instead of a vertical one.

If I wanted to do this with a painted warp rather than with a gradated warp cross wise, you can just make my gradation horizontal instead of vertical. Here I have created a horizontal gradient but have not copied the drawdown onto it.

I could also design a painted warp or ikat warp, by using a (computer) paintbrush to paint that image just the way I wanted it before I copied the drawdown on it. And I could also just play with all the design/color effects the graphics program offers me. In which case I might never get anything else done!

I can also change the color(s) of the weft yarns.

Would this work in the complicated kind of weaving I am doing? I’m skeptical. To make it work at all would, I suspect, require a lot more work. At some point, now that I now what I am doing, I will try it just to see.

P.S.

These graphics programs cost money, thought Paint Shop Pro is much less expensive than Photoshop. But there is a nifty free graphics program with all the power of these two programs. It’s called The Gimp. Like the other two programs, it takes awhile to learn. But there are books, online tutorials, forums and email lists for support.

The program is open source software. I am all for open source and so have been tempted to download it. Perhaps the next time Paint Shop Pro has an upgrade I will consider moving to the Gimp.

Also, you can use your free Print Screen on your keyboard to copy what is on the screen. But I find Snagit so useful for all sorts of things that I think it is worth the money to have.

Related Post: Colors for Silk Crackle Warp

"PixeLoom, Paint Shop Pro and Gradated Warps" was written by Margaret Carpenter for Talking about Weaving and was originally posted on October 7, 2008. © 2008 Margaret Carpenter aka Peg in South Carolina

PAINTING A MOCK-UP -- WITH PAINT OR COMPUTER SOFTWARE

Some of the dissatisfaction I expressed a recent post might be helped by painting my ideas first. I am not talking about any kind of detailed painting, the cartoons that tapestry weavers do, for example. I do think cartoon might not be a bad word. What i am talking about would be simply a painting that roughs in the colors with approximate proportions. What to do within the roughed-out colors would be determined at the loom.

"PAINTING" ON THE COMPUTER

I would probably "paint" on the computer simply because that would be easier. I think, too, it could be just as effective. But I would want to blow it up to the actual size of the weaving. Perhaps I can do this while I am dyeing the additional colors I am going to need.

A recent email helped to generate this line of thinking. In that email I learned that Sally Breckenridge, who created the weaving software called has now created a new weaving software program. This program is called GridN'WeaveIt

GRID'N'WEAVEIT

Grid'N'Weaveit is a graphics program is similar in some basic respects to other graphics programs such as Paint Shop Pro. But Sally's software enables you to create your graphic as a woven image. One thing of interest, for example, is that you can use your warp and weft lines as grids.

The intended audience is tapestry weavers and rug weavers. I wonder if it might be helpful to me? A thought. Unlike tapestry and rug weaving, however, my crackle weaving depends on the interaction of warp and weft. I could probably get just as good a overall idea of where I want to go in a piece by painting or with ordinary graphics software.

PAINT SHOP PRO AND PAINTER

Meanwhile, for my one of my next art pieces, I may work with Paint Shop Pro. In recent years, this software has become largely a tool for photographers in its most recent incarnations. For the serious computer artist Corel has has focused on developing Painter. Unfortunately its price tag puts it out of my league. Or maybe fortunately, for I suspect it would be mostly a distraction to the work I really want to do.

Paint Shop Pro still has the tools I need to do the kind of "painting" I might need to do.

Related Link: Designing Plaids and Corel Painter

© 2008

DESIGNING PLAIDS AND COREL PAINTER

I happened to run across an interesting tutorial for Corel's software called Painter. No, I don't have the software. I found it as a result of some link or other. The tutorial tells you how to use Painter to design both simple and complex plaids. Go here to have a look.

You can downlowd a 30-day trial here to test it if you are curious. I'm kind of curious........ Too bad it costs so much money!