Looking to the Past

 

draft showing one repeat in the threading, two in the treadling and the hem area

This is a draft from Ars Textrina, one of the drafts from one of the old German weaving pattern books, translated by Pat Hilts.

The draft was originally developed for 12 shafts, but I have 16, so I extended the draft to use all of them.  Because I can.  

The interesting thing to me is that while the 'star' in the middle is symmetrical, the rest of the draft is not.  In the end it turned into something that I found quite interesting.  And why I can spend a long time (at times) at the desktop mucking about with drafts.  Push this line here, shove that line there, whatta we got?

In some ways, I liken playing with twill lines a lot like 'drawing' with an Etch-a-sketch.  If you keep the lines linked up and on the diagonal you can come up with some interesting things,.  And then you can play with the tie up, too, and see what happens.

When software for weaving first appeared, there were whole lot of weavers who declared 'that isn't weaving!'

Um, yes, it is.  In my own experience, I didn't spend any less time generating a draft, I actually spent at least the same amount of time, but I was able to generate many drafts, not just 2 or 3.  In the end, I feel that using weaving software made me a better designer.  I would go through larger numbers of designs until I was happy, not just 'satisfied'.  In the end I learned a lot more about how threads interlace and I could begin with the knowledge already in my head to try to execute what I wanted to do.  And then quickly edit the draft to get it closer and closer to what I wanted.

Now when I sit down at the computer I usually have an idea what I want to have happen.  At times I do start with a draft presented by another weaver/designer, but tend to edit them.  On the warp just cut off the loom, there was an error in the draft in the book, which I spotted immediately and fixed.

Weaving software is not 'artificial intelligence'.  It is a tool, just like a lot of other things I use.  It is a good idea if a new weaver learns how to do a drawdown by hand, just so that they understand the connection between how the loom works, and how a draft works.  But weaving software?  Yes, it is a weaving tool.