Racing Stripes - Experimenting with Pattern Drafting

Racing Stripes

January - February 2023

Materials: Maysville Carpet Warp (8/4 Cotton)

Tools: 19 weaving cards

Length: ~ 39 cm (15.4 in)

Width: 2 cm (0.8 in)

 

This little piece was my first attempt at drafting a weaving pattern myself. Since I was already experimenting, I decided to try making something asymmetrical, and without the usual border. I pretty much just played around with Tablet Weaving Draft Designer until I had something I thought would look interesting, looking at some of the previous designs I'd woven for reference. The overall inspiration for the color scheme and design came from art of rally, a racing video game I'd been playing.

 

A note on fishing swivels

One new trick I had picked up and used for weaving this piece was using fishing swivels to manage twist buildup. Normally, the more you turn a specific card in the same direction, the more twisted the warp threads going through that card will become, eventually making it impossible to continue. This is especially an issue with border cards, as you usually want to always turn them in the same direction to make a neat edge. The traditional way to deal with this is to occasionally switch the turning direction for border cards (or, equivalently, flip the border cards so that forward turns act like backward turns), which works but creates little dimples at the edges, which don't always look great. Twist buildup can also be an issue in non-border cards, if the pattern is not "twist-neutral" (meaning that the number of forward turns is equal to the number of backward turns for each card). In this case, the solution is similarly to occasionally switch to a mirrored version of the pattern to equalize things.

 

This can all be avoided by tying the warp threads from each card to a fishing swivel, which can freely rotate to remove the built-up twist. I've found that this can sometimes create extra hassle in maintaining consistent thread tension, however, so it isn't without trade-offs. From this point forward, I usually use fishing swivels on all border cards, and use them for pattern (aka non-border) cards only if the pattern isn't twist neutral.

Weaving Pattern

• As a TDD file (for importing into and modifying in Tablet Weaving Draft Designer)
  
• As an image (ready to be followed for weaving)
  

References

1. Video explaining the "traditional" approach to twist management: https://youtu.be/NobGq4Me9os

2. Video explaining a good way to tie warp threads to fishing swivels: https://youtu.be/lP5KvgTKwj8

3. Tablet Weaving Draft Designer software: https://jamespbarrett.github.io/tabletweave/