Improbable Drafts

A weaving draft serves as both instructions on how to set up a loom and how to weave a piece, and gives a preview of what the end result will look like.

Improbable Drafts is a collection of weaving drafts that you'd probably never see. These drafts may contain errors, be too complicated to set up, produce undesirable, unusable, or even ugly results, or be an overly complicated means to an end. Or, maybe you'll end up with a draft that just makes sense - that's improbable itself!

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Each draft has four components: threading (top left), tie-up (top right), treadling (bottom right), and draw down (bottom left).

The threading describes how your warp (vertical) yarns are positioned, and what colour each warp yarn is. Each row in the threading grid is a shaft, and each warp yarn is a column. A warp yarn can only be threaded through one shaft. The shafts control which yarns are raised or lowered, which, in combination with the weft (horizontal) yarn, form a pattern. A threading pattern is read from right to left, and the pattern continues for the desired width of piece.

The tie up determines which shafts are attached to which treadles. Treadles, operated by a weaver's feet, can lift one or more shafts - these control which shafts are in use, and allows for more than one to be at a time. There is one column for each treadle and one row for each shaft in the grid.

The treadling shows what order the treadles are pressed in, and therefore what order the shafts are raised in. When shafts are raised, the weft yarn is passed through. The treadling also shows which colour of weft yarn to use. The pattern is read from top to bottom, and repeats for the entire length of the weaving.

Finally, the draw down puts all of these pieces together and shows a preview of what the woven piece will look like when combining the threading and treadling patterns, as well as the warp and weft yarn colours.

The threading, tie up, and treadling in this project are all ones commonly used in weaving, including tabby, twill, overshot, monk's belt, and more, with some improbable alterations. Every draft is possible to set up and weave, though niceness of results are not guaranteed.

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Made in p5.js sharla, with a touch of p5.grain by meezwhite and gorilla sun.

thank you, and happy weaving!