Friday, July 8, 2011

Profile Drafting

I've been thinking a lot about profile drafts since I did this tutorial at weavingtoday.com.  I figured out how to do the profile draft using a simple draft with 2 blocks, but it only allowed for 4-shaft designs.  I wanted to go beyond the basics and utilize my 8-shaft loom, which means I needed bigger profile drafts.  That's when I discovered the Gartner Manuscript.  While away on vacation in Washington, I took this book with me to work on a profile draft in summer and winter.  It was definitely a challenge to figure out how to do the profile draft with more than 2 blocks.  That is why I wanted to describe it here, so it could save everyone else some time!  For this explanation, I chose Johan Ludwig's Speck's #20 from this book, which is on page 104.  It looks like this:


In order to go through this, I am going to assume that a basic knowledge is known about the profile draft.  If a review is necessary, see my beginning tutorial .  It has a cheat sheet and a power point to explain it all from the very basics.  

This profile draft will make a 6-shaft design in summer and winter.  In order to "translate" this profile draft, I have to consider the different blocks for threading:

Block A= shafts 1-3-2-3
Block B= shafts 1-4-2-4
Block C= shafts 1-5-2-5
Block D= shafts 1-6-2-6
Tabby= shafts 1-2 & 3-4-5-6

And these are the tie-ups for this profile draft:
pedal 1= shafts 1-2
pedal 2= shafts 3-4-5-6
pedal 3= shafts 1-3
pedal 4= shafts 2-3
pedal 5= shafts 1-4
pedal 6= shafts 2-4
pedal 7= shafts 1-5
pedal 8= shafts 2-5
pedal 9 = shafts 1-6
pedal 10 = shafts 2-6

The treadling will follow the profile draft alternating with shots of tabby on pedals 1&2:
Block A= pedals 3&4
Block B= pedals 5&6
Block C= pedals 7&8
Block D= pedals 9&10

So basically, you just follow the profile draft from this point on, plugging in the substitutions where they belong. The warp is one solid color and the weft goes back and forth between two colors.  The tabby is the same as the warp and the pattern thread is something contrasting, sometimes a bigger size.  Here is the corner up close so you can see the detail.  As you can see, it gets way bigger once everything gets plugged into it!


And here is the whole profile draft in summer and winter:


I think I'm going to make this into some dishtowels.  My supply has run very low because of the many special days (like birthdays and Mother's Day for example!) that have come and gone!  I haven't picked out my colors yet, but will start looking today!