I'm working with an image of orchids against a background of ferns. Here's the original image:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg61F2_JUgQ0SD2eDZidLRQHZnuCr3jmQ4UtA2xE0mOMWpombLQiVy8-B5k1dhFZf45vLsf24VXshZdu2WKpaP8CpqWSY5blApEcJCLIt4QUo8XN1F6B-UlLkzRIpvWDAToJsXe/s320/orchid-orig.jpg)
And the image after cropping and adjusting contrast, color, and saturation, then indexing to 12 colors (the design is intended to be woven with 3 wefts - white, fuchsia, and green).
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkRuuR3NOtRpahwODHmvDhYrqPvWPvMkKFp13-Ap5iL096XPD02PbuCk-jGkfiu5V_865Im5rU2ZpbCtMeNSsE1EBdoqIeQOnEWNgW_GyCf4aqkqExlERI1tcRHQK15lX5nkqI/s320/orchid-cropped+indexed.jpg)
After substituting the appropriate weaves for each of the 12 colors, here's what I get:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6wjdBeiw6Mnh8zz2sPbMYGyrZtDpvWSUmdpA-S6H3kti-tfW_FFI07U1OVPyHVhPCVtdVQbGcDxrVwbAdQqsElvsqY2q5PWl31K9A4sLULj1BYxluLAlL8xWz4zogjAB8Kzp4/s320/orchids+ferns-weaves.jpg)
Pretty exciting, right? At this point, it's a matter of faith. I have to believe that the weave will raise the right colors to the surface at the right time, and let the other colors sink to the back when they're not center stage. Faith.
The only hard part is remembering to throw the right shuttle in the right sequence. My mantra is "white, fuchsia, green, white, fuchsia, green..."
With 2-shuttle weaving, it is fairly easy to keep your place. Color A is always the odd-numbered picks, and color B is always the even numbered picks. But with 3 shuttles, all bets are off. My mental arithmetic stops being able to divide by 3 after a certain threshold is reached, so only the mantra helps keep things in order.
After a short sample (a 2-inch strip in the middle of the image, using sort-of-but-not-necessarily-the-final-yarns; this is why God made leftovers) to determine the correct aspect ratio, I began the actual weaving:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNRVEdobCs1HWR7V5iKQBUymVkptl5EU5mIDgCy7Ic2ja6nAy1au9BbrebZcKcFUHBeD3uC_hThfW7GWJscZCG3MUu1UPpXp1vbJrggq2RoEMBWwhPOAlSt1widYJhiryH5u9j/s320/orchid-on-loom.jpg)
More tomorrow.
3 comments:
That is very, very cool!
and on the seventh day he checked on the aspect ratio :D
the background of the weaving looks intriguing.
A piece of advice that Ruth Temple passed on to me (she got it from Syne Mitchell) is to place the shuttle you most recently threw furthest away from you on the web. That way the shuttles naturally rotate as you weave, and you just have to remember to pick the shuttle that's closest to you. I'm currently doing a five-shuttle weave (for which it is impossible for me to *remember* which one comes next) and this method makes it easy to throw the next shuttle consistently.
Give it a try!
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