Susan Wilson's excellent seminar about crackle weave at CW was a real eye-opener for me. She achieves complex multi-toned structures on four shafts, and she clearly believes "less is more." She points out, and rightly so, that this weave structure does not necessarily improve when more shafts are used, and that the larger scale motifs on multi-shaft crackles are not always desirable. Her book, Weave Classic Crackle & More, is well worth careful study, and it is a beautifully organized and produced book as well. Highly recommended.
In a chat with Lynn Smetko (talented weaver and editor of the CW Journal) after Susan's seminar, we were wondering about simulating a 4-shaft crackle threading on a straight draw on a 40-shaft loom. Some 40-shaft weavers like to keep a straight threading on their looms (and who can blame us? Rethreading such a deep loom is a back-breaker). I gave this question serious thought.
The crackle design would have to have a threading repeat that numbered exactly 40 or some factor of 40. What I came up with is a 40-end threading that combines blocks A and C (using Susan's terminology). There is an incidental after two repeats of each block, and also an extra incidental for skipping blocks B and D. Here's the 4-shaft version:
Now here's what I came up with for 40 shafts (click to enlarge & see the threads more clearly):
It's exactly the same structurally as the 4-shaft version, but weavable on the 40-shaft dobby loom. This warp is striped, by the way. If I were to make the warp solid black, which is exactly what I am about to put on my loom, it would look something like this (again, click to embiggen):
Is all this worth doing, when the cloth could easily be woven on 4 shafts? I think so! The more things I can do with my straight threading, the happier this weaver will be.
Here's the wif file for the 40-shaft version, in case anyone's interested. Send me pictures.
Download 40shaftcracklesimulation