String Notes

I use the statistical software language R extensively at work: all my data analysis and graphing is done in R. I have a couple of software packages in the R archive, and have published peer-reviewed papers on those R packages.

And so everything starts to look like a nail…

I’m working on a project that requires drafting lots of new tablet weaving patterns: doubleface, 3/1 broken twill, maybe some pebble weave. I’ve done patterns with colored pencil and graph paper, with a spreadsheet, and with GTT, but none of those are exactly what I need.

I could write my own pattern software in R! (Yes, I am clearly approaching maximum possible geekiness. But you knew that, right?) Right now, it will take a bitmap image, check it for weavability, and create a pattern draft for either doubleface or twill.

The intersection of the sets of avid tablet weavers and avid users of R is likely very small, but it may well be greater than one. If there’s interest, I may eventually polish the code and turn it into a proper package with documentation and such.

This is what tablet weaving looks like, in miniature.

This section is doubleface,

and this one 3/1 broken twill.

Take an image, say the R logo.

Shrink it to a weaveable number of pixels and convert it to black and white. For this one, rotate it too.

Run it through the doubleface check routine, and plot the result. The plotting function automatically puts red X symbols on the spots where the pattern needs tweaking before it can be woven in the desired structure. (Color changes must be an even number of pixels / weft picks apart vertically for this structure.)

The lines by default are every 10 pixels, but that can be changed.

Fix those problems, and run the check again. Repeat as needed until the design is weaveable.

Then run the doubleface pattern generator on it. The weaver needs to specify whether SS or SZ structure is desired. A twining plan is returned that shows the direction of twist in the band (though it doesn’t cancel out the reversal points). This is the same as the turning plan if all tablets are S-threaded.

For this one, the doubleface is in SS structure, with all tablets threaded the same way.

That’s the effect of using an alternating threading instead. If you want to weave it with tablets actually threaded alternately instead of all S, there’s a function for that too. That function takes the twining plan and creates a turning plan with a particular threading.

I think this is the best one: I swapped the SZ for ZS setup, and created the corresponding SZ turning plan. Now someone just needs to weave it (set the cards up ZS across the pack).

There’s no hand-holding. This is a command-line tool, and you need to keep track of what you’re doing, and what the output files are. It won’t tell you how to set your tablets up: you need to know what you’re doing. But there’s nothing better if you have a stack of images to draft, and it runs on Windows/Linux/Mac.

It does do twill, though that’s harder to design and to weave, and using the patterns may require a bit of knowledge on the part of the weaver. I’m going to add pebble weave, and I’ve set it up in such a way that other structures are possible if I have a need for them.

Michelle says that she likes photographing reflections in windows. Me too! I was going to leave her a comment, but decided to share it with all of you.

It looks like most of my library of weird city photos are not on Flickr, but here are a couple:

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Monday.

All kinds of things going on around here. But those will have to wait a bit: today is for weblink catch-up.

Silk science is hot. Recent news releases include transgenic silkworms that spin spider silk, and using silk as a framework for growing new heart cells.

Chris Petty is doing a PhD dissertation on warp-weighted looms, and would like your input.

Katrin Kania did her PhD dissertation on the construction of medieval clothing. The volume was published in German, and she’d like to publish an English translation, but first she needs to demonstrate interest so a publisher will be interested. I urge you to go sign up to her mailing list. Katrin is a reenactor as well as scholar, and she’s made and worn the outfits she studies. You want this:

The German version has 529 pages and more than 400 illustrations, some of them in colour. It features information about sewing techniques, textile techniques, how to critically look at sources for garment research, the development of medieval clothing, a reconstructed technique for tailoring historical garments and – last but of course not least – a catalogue of still extant medieval garments and garment fragments from 500 to 1500.

According to Isis Sturtewagen, back issues of Textielhistorische Bijdragen are now available online. She has very conveniently indexed all the late medieval and early modern articles here. Very handy.

If you happen to be local:

The Centre County Knitters Guild is please to announce I HEART KNITTING, a gathering of all fiber enthusiasts. February 4th 2012, 10:00 until 5:00 at the Boalsburg Fire Hall on Pine St. Boalsburg, PA. Free admission; food bank donations requested.

Making a Viking ship:

That was helpful, not that I give myself any credit for it. Although it’s likely that some of the five hundred or so people who visited one of my sites yesterday didn’t know much about SOPA/PIPA, and maybe they clicked on the EFF link and learned something.

But you know industry’s concerns about the internet aren’t going to go away. This is something to keep a careful eye on, if you’d like to be able to use Wikipedia and YouTube and Flickr and Twitter and Facebook and Google, and this site, all of which are in jeopardy.

If this site, in its entirety, is down tomorrow.

SOPA and PIPA are utterly appalling pieces of potential US legislation, and would likely destroy the internet as a community.

Not that I expect my tiny participation in tomorrow’s blackout campaign to have any effect, but I want to add my support. The internet has been crucial to my life in many ways, and all of them could go away. All of the sites I maintain will be down, including the business pages, joining many much more influential sites. Like, oh, Wikipedia, and Reddit, and Boing Boing. (Note: this won’t affect the LJ feed; I have no control over their servers.)

Here’s one way to join in if you maintain a website of your own.

And on second thought, be very alarmed.

Edit: All rumors to the contrary, SOPA is not dead, just tabled until February.

Also, irony is not dead.

Administrative tasks expand to fill the available space. Despite the long weekend, I’ve neither written nor woven. Many other things are done, though, or at least well-begun.

[Oh look... the upgrade mucked up the categories. Hm. Will fix that at some point, I suppose.]

I thought you all might like this article on crocheted clouds.

Though there are many types of cumulus cloud, they are all united by their fractal nature, which prompted Najle to turn to crochet to capture their complex, cauliflower-like topology. Najle says crochet is the perfect medium for representing fractal structures because its surfaces can be subdivided again and again by varying the length of neighbouring crochet lines. This can create the necessary curvature for cumulus clouds, in much the same way that crochet has been used to represent the hyperbolic surfaces of corals.

So I spent the afternoon working on the website. Nothing should have changed from the outside, but the serverguts are all pretty and shiny and clean: updated, backed up, tweaked and twiddled.

I don’t think I broke anything, but I trust you to let me know if I did.

The main part of this side (the non-blog part) desperately needs to be brought into the 21st century, but that’s a bigger task than one afternoon.

Edit: ah, it broke my widgets. I think I’ve got everything back except the blogroll, which requires curation anyway. A previous update broke tagging on older posts; that’s still to do as well. Behind as usual…

It’s Elvis Presley’s birthday, and R.L. Stein’s. Stephen Hawking turns a rather remarkable 70.

David Bowie turns 65.

While collecting links for the paper art post, I ran across Debbie Smyth’s thread art. Not the 1970s geometrics, but something entirely different.

My mother sent me some information about paper artist Calvin Nicholls. His sculptures are too lovely not to share.

These sculptures are constructed from carefully cut, shredded, folded and glued paper.

Aren’t they amazing? And prints are quite reasonably priced.