Guntram's Tabletweaving Thingy
Guntram's Tabletweaving Thingy
No, this is not really a manual; if I get the choice between coding and documentation the documentation suffers
terminally. So here are just some brief snippets of information that will hopefully provide sufficient help to get started.
Most of this document was generated using GTT v1.06, so there may be some differences if you are using another
version, especially regarding the various tool buttons. These have been shifted around radically in v1.11; a summary of
the tools can be found in Appendix C.
Contents
Card Labeling
Lettered Bands
Font and Letter Selection
Band Generator
Design Area
Palettes
Creating Palettes
Using Palettes
Printing a Pattern
Card Labelling
Due to some early misinterpretations I am using a rather counter-intuitive method, with holes labelled in a counter-
clockwise direction:
A D
B C
Some day I will correct that, but for now you are stuck with it.
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Weaving Actions
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The design tool panel shows the tools that for manipulating the current design. They can be used to
change colours by clicking on the weaving image, change turning directions etc. Note that the tools
only change the appearance of the design; they do not change its size. To add picks, use the Weaving
Action tools.
This area displays the pick and card under the cursor, as well as the topmost hole in that position.
This area has the colour manipulation options; see below for more details.
Tool Buttons
Colour Manipulation
This panel shows the currently selected colours and has various manipulation options. Once a primary
color (on the left) or a secondary colour (on the right) has been selected, the colours in the pattern can
be changed by simply clicking on the weaving image. Left-clicking will set the topmost hole of the
relevant card with the primary colour; right-clicking will set the hole with the secondary colour.
The card setup (including the number of cards) can be changed at any time; this will of course affect whatever pattern
has been created already.
If you want to set the colour or threading for only some of the cards, or move a card to a different position, select the
card (or cards) by clicking on its number, which will then appear highlighted in red. Any actions such as setting the
colours etc will now affect only the selected cards. To deselect a card, click again on its number.
Before the thread colours can be set, a colour must be selected, and optionally a secondary colour can be selected as
well.
Click here to select the
primary colour.
Click on one of these buttons to set the colour
of the thread in all cards (or all selected cards,
Click here to select the if specific cards have been selected).
secondary colour.
The colour of a particular thread can also be set by clicking on the 'hole' in the list. Left-clicking will set the thread with
the primary colour; right-clicking will set the thread with the secondary selected colour.
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The threading for each card can be set by clicking on the letter S or Z below each card in the list. Alternatively, one of
the threading buttons can be used:
Set the threading of all cards (or all selected cards) to S-threaded.
Set the threading of all cards (or all selected cards) to Z-threaded.
Set the threading of all cards (or all selected cards) to alternate S- and Z- threaded.
Set the threading of all cards (or all selected cards) to alternate Z- and S- threaded.
Change the threading of all cards to the opposite.
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Do a pick.
Do a pick in reverse, i.e. all cards marked for turning forwards are turned backwards and vice versa.
Undo the last pick.
Clear the pattern - i.e. delete all picks and start from scratch.
Show or hide the packs. Toggling this button will automatically change the Card Action Display to show
either individual cards or packs of cards.
Breaks up packs into individual card actions. If a pattern has been created using packs, it may be necessary to
do this if certain functions (egg changing turning directions using the Design Tools) are to be used. Note
however that once this has been done, the operation cannot be reversed, i.e. it is not possible to automatically
combine individual card actions into packs.
Set up the packs. This must be done before any pack actions can be performed.
Pack Actions
The Pack Actions work similarly to the individual card actions. Each column represents a pack, and F and B show the
turning direction for the next pick. To change the direction, just click on the letter. To twist a pack of cards, click in the
Twist row and a mark will appear. When the pick is created, all cards in the pack will be twisted, but note that the mark
will remain, thus on the next pick the cards will be twisted again.
A pack can be set to idle by clicking on the heading. The column will appear greyed out (Pack IV in the example
below), and no actions for that pick will be generated when the next pick is created.
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The Card Action Display shows all the picks and the actions performed on each card. If individual card actions are
being used, the display will show the turning direction for each card; if pack actions are used, the display will show the
directions for each pack.
In
Repeat will cause the selected picks to be repeated in the order in which they were created.
! The order in which the picks have been selected determines the order in which they are repeated. Thus, if
picks 1, 3, 4, and 2 are selected in that order, they will be repeated like that, and the pattern will most likely
look quite different from what is expected.
Design Tools
Card Setup
The designer for simple 2-colour doubleface patterns is virtually the same as the multi-colour designer. There are only
two real differences:
1. In the multi-colour designer, the Card Setup area at the bottom of the screen will show four colours for each card
instead of only two.
2. The simple designer will show the actual colours in the Design Area, whereas the multi-colour designer always
shows a black-and-white pattern. In both cases however the final appearance can be seen on the Real Image tab.
Display Selection
The two tabs can be used swap between the design interface and an image of the actual result. See section The
Weaving Image for details about the Real Image tab.
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The threading for each card can be set by clicking on the letter S or Z below each card in the list. Alternatively, one of
the threading buttons can be used:
Set the threading of all cards (or all selected cards) to S-threaded.
Set the threading of all cards (or all selected cards) to Z-threaded.
Set the threading of all cards (or all selected cards) to alternate S- and Z- threaded.
Set the threading of all cards (or all selected cards) to alternate Z- and S- threaded.
Change the threading of all cards to the opposite.
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The 3/1 Broken Twill designer is amost identical to the standard double-face designer, with the following differences:
Instead of a simple grid, the blocks are arranged in the staggered pattern necessary for 3/1 broken twill design. This has
an impact on several of the tools:
Shifting the image only works properly if done two steps at a time. Shifting the image by one step results
in a mess!
Note that this shift problem depends on the orientation; if the pattern has been rotated to lie horizontally it
is the vertical shift that requires two steps.
The area selection is disabled completely due to the difficulty in selecting a 'rectangle'.
Mirroring an image may case the same problems as shifting it, depending on the axis and the orientation of
the design. If you end up with a mess instead of a pattern, click on the Realign button.
Mirroring an image will also mirror all the long float tags (see the additional tools below). However, since
the placement of these tags is directly related to the position of each card in the basic 4-card sequence, it is
unlikely that the tags will be in the correct position to create smooth colour boundaries after they have been
mirrored.
Realigns the pattern after it has been shifted or mirrored. Due to the offset between blocks, shifting a
pattern by an uneven number of steps can cause a misalignment. This button fixes the alignment (including
the long float tags).
If the pattern is shifted, then realigned, this has the effect of moving the image diagonally.
Additional Tools
Toggles the mode between setting the pattern and setting long floats. See below for more details.
Marks long floats on the pattern.
Clears all long floats.
Card Threading
Although the threading can be changed, it is advisable to stick with the standard method, ie threading all cards in the S
direction. At present GTT only supports the one-pack method (as described in The Techniques of Tabletweaving), and
colours are automatically assigned in the following sequence:
Hole Card
1 2 3 4
A P B B B
B P P B P
C B P P P
D B B P B
P = Pattern warp
B = Background warp
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Long Floats
The standard turning sequence for a card is FFBB (with different starting points). To achieve smooth colour boundaries
it is necessary to change the turning direction in the middle of a sequence, resulting in a long float. In GTT this can be
achieved almost painlessly by marking a block as having a long float. The pattern will be marked like this:
The normal turning sequence for the three blocks would be FFBBBB, but since the second block
has been marked with a long float tag, the turning sequence will be FFBFFF.
Turning directions before the second block has been Turning directions after the second block has been
marked: marked, showing the long float:
Colour Interchanges
Clicking on the Print Pattern button can generate two different types of turning sequence, depending on the option
selected in the File | Settings | 3/1 Broken Twill menu:
Change Turning Sequence Colour interchanges are accomplished by changing the turning sequence so that cards
are turned in the same direction for four successive picks. No cards need to be twisted.
Use Card Twists Colours are interchanged by twisting cards about the vertical axis. All cards are turned
in the standard sequence (ie FFBB, FBBF, BBFF, or BFFB), but note that long floats
will change the sequence.
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Letter Properties
Design Tools
Letter Selection
Letter Design
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Font Properties
This form is used to set the overall properties of the character set.
Letter This is a short, preferably single-letter designator for the character. It is used when a lettered band is created.
Name This is a longer description of the character.
Width Defines the width of the letter. Changing the number has no effect until the button is pressed.
Displays or prints the turning sequence for the selected letter.
The Letter Design is almost the same as for a standard double-face pattern, the sole difference being that no colours
can be selected. See the Double-Face Pattern Designer for details.
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Lettered Bands
Design Area
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This panel shows the font used for the band as well as all the letters in the font.
To add a letter to the band, simply double-click on it.
Select the font to use for the band. Changing the font will clear the band,
although any pattern generated in the design area will remain.
To select a particular letter, simply click on it - it will be outlined in red. To deselect the letter, click on it again.
The design area is the same as for a normal double-face pattern, except that no colours or threading can be selected.
Tool Buttons
In GTT, each cord is shown as a series of parallelograms since this is the closest simple
representation of the structure of a band. However, the actual appearance of the band End Height
will differ depending on the yarn used and on the thickness of the weft. This can be
simulated in GTT by setting the size ratios of the display. There are three factors that can Centre Height
be set, as shown in the diagram on the right.
End Height
Note that the End Height is counted twice. The numbers represent the ratios between
these factors; they can be fractions but should be 1 or greater. Number less than one will
give some very strange results!
By default, the Centre Height is set to zero, so that each cell will look something like Width
this:
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Palettes
For the sake of convenience only 16 colours are available when designing a pattern; it seems unlikely that a single band
will use more colours than that! These colours are arranged in a palette from which the current colour can be selected.
GTT automatically creates a default palette with some standard colours, but any number of additional palettes with
difference colours can be created.
Creating Palettes
Palettes can be edited or created via the Edit | Palettes menu option.
Double-clicking on the palette name, or clicking once on a palette and clicking on Edit will show the palette details (see
below). To change a particular palette colour, simply double-click on the colour box in the list and choose the new
colour.
Using Palettes
Both the threaded-in pattern designer and the double-face pattern designer allow you to select colours from a palette
associated with the design. A new pattern automatically uses the Default palette, but a different palette can be selected
using the palette tool buttons.
Select a new palette. This also allows you to create an entirely new palette.
Edit the colours of the current palette. The pattern is automatically updated after the colours have been
changed.
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Printing a Pattern
This display is used for printing the turning sequence for both threaded-in and double-face patterns.
Card Numbering This option determines the direction in which cards are numbered when looking at the
pack from the woven to the unwoven end of the warp.
First Card The starting values used for numbering the cards. This can be used if the pattern
represents only a section of the band.
Show Individual Cards Shows or hides the columns for each card. This does not affect the printed information,
but does affect the details copied to the clipboard using the Clipboard button.
Print Image Determines whether the pattern image should be printed. If the box is checked, the
image will be printed exactly as it appears in the design form.
This option displays a complete list of the position of each card at the start of every pick
in the sequence. The topmost holes of each card are shown, together with (optionally)
the threading direction. This is the actual direction in which the threads run at that point.
This display is intended mainly as a problem-fixing tool to check that the cards have been
turned or twisted correctly.
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2. Setting up Cards
a) Click on Card Setup button.
b) In the Cards edit box, enter the number of cards you want to use, then click on the button. You will see a
list of the cards appear on the right.
c) Click on the circle to select a colour, then for each card click on the hole where the colour is threaded. To
quickly set the colour for all holes, click on one of the lettered buttons next to the colour circle.
d) Click on one of the threading buttons etc to set the threading for the cards, or alternatively click on the
S or Z below each card to change the threading direction.
e) Click on .
a) Click on the button to turn all cards forwards, or to turn all cards backwards.
b) Clicking on now turns those cards backwards, and the others forwards.
c) Clicking on will perform the reverse action, ie cards marked F will turn backwards and cards marked B will
turn forwards.
5. Using Packs
To simplify repeated forward/backward changes, card packs can be used:
a) Click on the button to set up the packs.
- Add as many packs as you need by clicking on .
- To change the name of a pack, click on the pack, then click again (not a double-click!).
- To add or remove a card to a pack, simply click in the relevant cell; a will mark the selected cards.
- Click on once you are finished setting up the packs.
b) Click on the button to show the list of packs.
c) As with individual cards, clicking on the F for a pack will change it to a B. Click on to turn the packs in the
This section gives a few examples of how to use GTT to display patterns in some common ways and how to do other
useful operations.
Simply click on the number of the card in the card list. The card will become idle until the number is clicked again.
Click on the column header to idle all cards in the pack. The cards will idle until the column header is clicked again.
Step 1: Go to the Settings menu, click on the Real Image Display tab, and under the
Show Turning Direction as option select White and Black Blocks.
Step 6: Optionally, since most patterns use squares instead of rectangles, click on
the Size Ratios button and set the width equal to the height.
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Step 1: Go to the Settings menu, click on the Real Image Display tab, and under the
Show Turning Direction as option select Diagonal Lines.
Step 5: To show the lines on a simple grey background, click on the Show/hide
colours button.
Step 6: Optionally, since most patterns use squares instead of rectangles, click on
the Size Ratios button and set the width equal to the height.
Step 1: Follow the steps in B3 or B4 to show the turning direction for the
pattern as either diagonal lines or as black and white blocks, whichever you
prefer.
Step 3: Click on the Show Card Threading button. (Note that this is
not the same as the Threading Diagram button).
B5. Reversing the Turning Sequence for Double-Face and Lettered Bands
When designing double-face patterns, the turning sequence is generated from the bottom up. Normally this should not
make a difference, but especially for lettered bands it may be confusing to weave the writing backwards. The pattern
generation works like this as a natural consequence of the way I personally weave, but may not be everyone's preferred
method.
An easy way of changing the order of the turning sequence is to use the mirror functions so that the 'first pick' becomes
the 'last pick':
First Pick
First Pick
Note that if only one of the mirror functions is used, the band will appear in mirror writing.
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Broken Twill
Broken Twill
Double-Face
Double-Face
Threaded-in
Threaded-in
Brocade
Brocade
Load Pattern X X X X Undo X X X X