Using WeavePoint to design an amalgamation draft

 I've been fascinated with amalgamation drafts since I first read Alice Schlein's Network Drafting: An Introduction.  Recently, Alice published a new monograph  called Amalgamation: Double your Dobby and I eagerly purchased a copy directly from her.

As I read the monograph, it appeared that only some weaving software programs were capable of copying the drawdown portion of the draft and pasting it into the threading.  I use WeavePoint for most of my design work, so I went to AVL to see if the programmer of WeavePoint, Bjorn Myhre could help.   At the same time, Bob Kruger from AVL sent the question to Jannie Taylor.  Between the two responses from Bjorn and Jannie, I was able to amalgamate to my heart's content!  So - thanks to both of them for making my software just a bit more valuable to me.

The following is my process.  I've also tried it with Fiberworks for PC and it works well there too.  Choose a threading that you want to amalgamate.  You will notice that I have selected a threading that can be duplicated, in other words, I haven't ended on shaft one so that it repeats without double threads.  Alice's method is just a bit different and she does put in threadings that begin and end on the same shaft.  (More about that later).

 

The next step will be to add a satin tie up and select "tromp as writ" to fill in the treadling.  In the example below the counter is 11.  (Satin counters are explained in Alice's monograph which I recommend buying if you are interested in doing this kind of design work.)  A plus to WeavePoint software is that you select Fill from your options bar - then select satin.  This feature will give you all the counters that will work with the number of shafts in your design.  Otherwise you will need to research satins for the number of shafts you are working with.

Then, change from tie up mode to liftplan mode.  This will give you a liftplan that you can paste into your threading.  So - copy the liftplan and paste it into the threading to the left of the original 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Change back to a tie up and treadling and do another "tromp as writ". 

 

Now you are ready to get rid of the satin tie up and experiment with twill tie ups.  Check the float length when you have one that pleases you.  Sometimes it can be hard to get something that has  floats that are 5 or less in length.  WeavePoint makes searching for a tie up easy too.  In the Fill option, select twill tie ups.  You will be able to set the float length for the tie up.  I usually start with 3, sometimes need to go down to 2 in order to find a tie up that won't result in too long floats in the drawdown.

 

 

You can use the draft as is now, or do another little fiddle bit.  I often copy the entire threading and then use "paste special" which is found in the Edit menu.  Click on "flip vertical" and then paste that threading to the left of the original threading.  This option gives you more designs.

 

 

The final bit of information that I gleaned while working with Alice's monograph and my WeavePoint design solution is that when you copy the original liftplan with the amalgamation in it, you can paste it into the threading by doing  a vertical flip (again use paste special in the Edit menu)  This allows you to start and end on the same shaft with your original threading.

 

3/18/23  This is a postscript to this post.  I recently found that Handweaving.net has a feature that automatically will make a series of amalgamation drafts online.  Watch the tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4cysOpJSKk   and see what you think.  You can always upload one of your own drafts to the site and manipulate it online as well.  Amazing tools that make our weaving design life so much better.