The warp is 5/2 cotton, the weft is 10/2 cotton. This is an eight harness satin weave, done on my draw loom with drall pulleys. The design is 163 (4 thread unit) blocks wide. This pattern is being done with the pattern saving lashes, so progress is slow. But, I should be able to do several more copies much more quickly once I'm done. The design is 117 blocks tall. Between picking and saving each pattern (block) row, it takes 10 - 15 minutes per block row, which is 8 shots. Of course the weaving of it is the least of that time!
This pattern was inspired by a Pate de Verre glass casting, done by my favorite artist, Argy Rousseau. I'll dig up the picture and post it below. The curved elements on the right of the design are the Ansii 8 bit codes for the word "weave," read from top to bottom. So, the code for "w" is "01010111" for example. This is a little joke for me because I spent the first 30 years of my career working with the most modern computers of the time, and am now spending my time with the oldest "computers" of the past.
Some of you already know this, but for those who don't, the cards that controlled the original Jacquard type looms, before the days of computers, were the inspiration for the original Hollerith computer punch cards. These cards were first used to tabulate the US census.
Nov. 9, 2012 update:
I just added a picture of the spider in green, and again, this is the back side. I've been experimenting with adding some other color, and used a gold thread for the inside outline of the spider body. I think I'm going to do the next one using what is normally the back as the front, and filling in the outline of the flowers with a different color.
Comments