24-Shaft Draft

Alice commented, "I'm intrigued by the arrangement of heddles showing on the tops of the shafts - an interesting threading, no doubt. May we see it?"

Isn't it funny how the arrangement of the heddles looks like a sort of secret code when all you can see is the tops of the texsolv sticking up in the air? One can tell it's some sort of advancing structure, but beyond that it's a mystery. So here it is (or at least part of it):



This is a networked design that I've used variations of in the past, both as a threading and as a treadling. It's actually a 20-shaft design; I use shafts 21-24 for a basket-weave selvedge. The threading is made up of little networked shapes that start small at the right edge, and grow gradually each iteration as you read toward the left. As a treadling, it starts small, grows, then shrinks again.

With all the interruptions of Open Studios visitors (not a lot of people, but several of them stayed quite a while asking questions about the looms and about the weaving, both dobby and jacquard) it took the whole day to sley the reed and lash on to the apron rod. The warp is spending the night under tension, and tomorrow I'll tweak the tension one last time. Then I'll perform the usual debugging routine to verify that there are no crossed threads or other little accidents, and begin weaving.