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having lots of fun with grid paper

i've been having fun today, weaving away and making up new drafts.

 This is a selection of the drafts i've been making up as I idly whittle my time away, avoiding doing what i'm supposed to be doing in my timetabled class time. Also what I've been doing at home when i should be studying for a test on colour chemistry, which isn't going to be easy. We're also going to get tested on weave structures and processes, but I know most of that and besides it tends to conform to logical rules. Colour chemistry and dyeing and all that though you just have to know. I guess there probably is some logical consistency to it, but probably only if you already happen to be shit-hot at molecular chemistry and physics and biology. Which I'm not
 I've also been weaving away (as I say) and have just finished my first sample of a pattern repeat i took from the knotwork book i mentioned before. It's working out rather well, although you can blatantly see the reed lines in the warp, it's a pain. With any luck it'll even itself out in finishing.
These pictures were taken with my new USB microscope. I got it for my birthday from my parents along with a beginner's Arduino kit, for which to be playing with textile electronics. i want to make an array of switches. It's difficult to explain. But now i have a microcontroller. Here is a picture close-up of a fucked-up bit of my bag where the fabric has been stretched and distorted due to rakes of stuff being stuffed into a small bag:

Is a little bit fuzzy, i forgot to take the lenscap off. Is good for examining fine fabrics close up and that. You can see how the fabric there's been damaged, is pretty good eh?

Anyhow, I've got a 24 shaft warp of 2/19's cotton to play with and more ideas than i know what to do with. considering that it takes me about an hour and a half to hammer in a 24 lag peg plan, it's probably worth taking care in what exactly i'm going to be weaving, as I can't spend all year making this one warp. I also have my special project to be working on, as well as a christmas present for my mum, which is a linen table runner and matching placemats. It's a surprise, but it's ok because she's allergic to the internet so she'll never know as long as noone tells her.
Having looked at some of these drafts a bit more closely it occurs they're occassionally flawed and wouldn't work actually. The above weave is a classic example of what happens when my love of symettry isn't working with commonsense and such.

-andrew

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