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Working with patterns


What you see in the drawdown area depends on 
- the colors assigned to warp and weft threads, 
- the threading (warp) and treadling (weft) patterns, and
- the tieup of shafts and treadles.

In this topic you will learn how to work with threading and treadling patterns in BW.
We will use threading examples, but treadling works exactly the same way. 


Patterns

Let's see what a pattern is.



This is a simple pattern. The yellow area shows the pattern: a group of set cells that is repeated throughout the harness area. The four cells of the pattern mean that:

- warp thread 1 goes through shaft 1, heddle 1
- warp thread 2 goes through shaft 2, heddle 1
- warp thread 3 goes through shaft 3, heddle 1
- warp thread 4 goes through shaft 4, heddle 1

When the pattern first repeats, it tells us that:

- warp thread 5 goes through shaft 1, heddle 2
- warp thread 6 goes through shaft 2, heddle 2
- warp thread 7 goes through shaft 3, heddle 2
- warp thread 8 goes through shaft 4, heddle 2

and so on...

Sometimes, projects may use more complex patterns:



Note that the pattern above is not the complete inverted 'V'. Including the last cell of the 'V' in a selection is a common error with this kind of pattern.


 
This last pattern belongs to file 33736.WIF, created by Kris Bruland from the book: 
'A Handbook of Weaves' - Oelsner, G. Hermann, 1915, page 342, figure 1672.
The WIF file was downloaded from handweaving.net, a site worth visiting! The book can be downloaded from the University of Arizona on-line weaving archive. 
Both sites are listed in the links section of our site.

The figure below shows the 33736 pattern image generated by BeforeWeaving and saved using the Save as BMP command.





How to create and manipulate patterns

This is a little example on how to create and fill the harness area with a pattern. Of course, it is possible to achieve the same result with a different sequence of operations.
The operations (in bold) refer to the operations dialog below.


1) Mark four cells to create half pattern and use the selection bar to select them.




2) Replicate the selection one time.




3) Select the replicated part




4) and Mirror it.




5) We don't have an inverted 'V' yet... So, select the cell you want to discard




6) and Delete it.




7) Now we select the pattern (note that we leave the last cell out of selection)




8) and Replicate it till the end of the harness area.




To keep this example simple, only the harness and selection areas were shown. But BW can manipulate patterns in the harness area, warp threads or both. The same is valid for weft and treadling.



The operations dialog

After you've selected a part of the weaving, click menu Edit/Selection 
and choose the desired area (Warp and threading or Weft and treadling)



This will open the corresponding (warp or weft) operations dialog:


The Operations dialog

The figure and the text refer to Warp and threading operations but same apply to Weft and treadling operations (except that columns become rows, and right/left become up/down).

The upper part of the dialog has a frame showing the selection begin and end positions.

Below this frame you'll find a set of option buttons. Click a button to choose one of the following operations:

1) Clear: this operation will reset (unmark) all the cells in the selection and paint the threads with their default color (warp and weft default colors are defined in Preferences).

2) Delete: the selection is 'removed', and all the cells at the right of the selection are shifted left.

3) Mirror: the selected cells are mirrored.

4) Move: the selection is moved the specified number of columns to the left or right. Cells outside the selection are not affected except for their relative position.

5) Replicate: the selection is replicated the specified number of times to the left or right. BW copies the contents of the selection into the cells within the replication span.


Below the option buttons the dialog shows a frame (Apply to:) with two checkboxes that tell BW where to apply the operation: warp colors, threading  or both (if both boxes are checked). 



Note

These operations do not affect the number of warp or weft threads. 
To insert or remove threads see Adding & removing threads.








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