Comments

lkautio (not verified)

Beautiful colors!

You can weight the shafts which are floating.  Or, try lifting them one by one (rather than raising both at the same time) to create the two up shed (use direct tie and two feet).  I've also cleared sticking sheds with a weaving sword but it sure slows down the progress.  Have fun!

Laurie Autio

 

Ellen (not verified)

Those are just great to cheer up a table! I guess your sister will be very pleased. Yes, countermatch is just the best :-)

Marsha A. Knox (not verified)

Love these colors!  Great job!

Thumper70 (not verified)

Absolutely fantastic colours! Really striking.

Jerri S

And this may be a silly question, but how do you use excel to make the design? It may be a moot point, since I do have PCW software, but I"ve been playing around with excel as the database for mail merge tags for the guild sale. The guildmate and good friend who was helping me test it out pointed out how little she knew about excel and how much I seemed to know. AWWWWW, except I know I have only scratched the excel surface. You don't need to describe it , if you could just point me where to get info to use it like you did to make your design, I'd much appreciate it.

I really do like the results of the colors you chose. :)

zinniz (not verified)

Hi Jerri,

I work with excel almost every day as a software consultant, so it's easy for me to play around with it.  I knew I was going to do a 2 block design so I used the rows and cells in excel to play with the color blocks.  First I highlighted all the rows and dragged to shrink them down to narrow columns that somewhat could resemble threads.  Then I used the color fill functions to fill cells with color and played around with how I wanted my blocks to work (thus getting the picture I put here).  Then I counted the cells and rows in each block and used those counts to come up with a proportional number of threads.  For example, if my design had 40 columns total, and I wanted to use 400 ends for the project, I'd wind 10 ends for each column.  I'm sure it's probably a lot easier to do this with weaving software, but I don't have any right now, so I use a combination of things that are free for me, like excel, pencil and paper, and freeware/shareware weaving software.

weave2 (not verified)

They are beautiful and the colors work very well together.  I'm sure they'll be appreciated for a very long time.

amyfibre (not verified)

beautiful colors and used very effectively!

suzyhok (not verified)

These are spectacular!  I was very interested also to read your explanation of how  you used Excel to design the overall effect.  I plan to explore Rep Weave soon and this is a real inspiration!  Thanks for sharing!

:-)  Suzy

SunriseLodgeFi… (not verified)

These are beautiful!!!  

SallyE (not verified)

Before I purchased weaving software, I used excel to do drafts.  I set the column width to 1.25, row height to 9 and used a square black symbol as fill.  The threading is in a horizontal row and the treddling in a vertical row on the left.  The formula in each intersecting cell is:

=IF(OR($A7=B$6,$A7=B$5)," ","█")

Obviously, your cell indicators might be different depending on where you start your draft.   Finally, this works only for overshot patterns with tabby picks between each pattern row.   I suppose you could change the formula to work for multiple shaft lifts, but I never did that so this only works if you are raising one shaft at a time.

Weaving software is easier!

Sally

Finished Length Unit
yards
Finished Width Unit
yards
Length Off Loom Unit
yards
Length on Loom Unit
yards
Notes

My sister requested a set of placemats in light green and yellow, so I designed the basic pattern in excel, and wound the warp combining many of the lovely colors of 10/2 cotton from lunatic fringe.  I'm using a worsted weight mercerized cotton for the thick weft. I  found it at my local yarn store for $5 a hank and I think each hank will do 2 placemats (waiting on finishing my sample to find out PPI).  This is my first warp-dominant project on the big loom.  It's kind of a pain because I keep getting floating shafts.  Another reason I need a countermarche loom...

I ended up dealing with the sticky shafts by developing a rhythm that included smacking the top of the shafts before each pick.  The smack would send any errant shafts downward and I could continue on.  It turned out that each hank of worsted weight mercerized cotton (100 grams) was enough for 3 placemats.  

I had a bit of warp left at the end so I wove off a 9" piece in roughly the same pattern.  It needs a little bit of crafting, but I believe it will become a kindle cover.

Number of Shafts
4
Number of Treadles
2
Project Status
Finished
Sett Unit
epi
Width off Loom Unit
inches
Width on Loom Unit
inches