Mapping old Kashmir shawl designs using carpet CAD software
Any antique kani-woven fabric that I am lucky enough to see in sufficient detail in published photographs, shows signs of being woven according to the formula of two picks of weaving for each line of talim instructions. This would correspond to old talim pages showing a “half” nal added to the beginning and end of every second line of text. The modern practice is to weave four picks to each talim line, strongly influenced by the availability of carpet design software which represents each knot on a square grid. For shawlweaving it can be interpreted as each nal woven in the four picks required to complete the 2/2 twill weave unit. That way, the next row of nals is placed in square-grid alignment, above the previous row. The result of this is a visibly more coarse and unfocussed appearance of the design in weaving. As well, the designs in antique fabrics and old talim cannot be exactly duplicated.
One of my earliest realizations was that a “brick” grid of suitable proportions could be used to represent two-picks-per-talim-line information corresponding to the detail I see in antique fabrics, and to explain the placement of those talim lines with half nals. In the early 1990’s, I was using prepared graph-paper and felt-tip markers to discover credible likenesses in random pages of talim. At about the same time that the commercial usefulness of CAD for carpet design was being recognized, the weaver Ingrid Boesel showed me a “grid-based ‘paint’ program” called Stitch Painter that provides a brick grid with all the on-screen advantages of formatting and correctability. It even provides a count of the colours in each row, similar to the talim, except that it uses western letters and numbers, and the half-nals need to be added by hand. Carpet CAD programs may use the short-hand numbers and symbols of the shawl alphabet, and employ half-units in mirror-reversed designs, but do they have the brick grid?
Recently I was asked to double the scale of a detailed buta design from an antique fabric that I was copying – double the number of nals and picks of weaving. I remembered seeing a programmer’s explanation that each unit of the brick grid combines the data for two side-by-side square-grid units. (Similarly a “half-drop” grid combines the data for pairs of square-grid units one-above-the-other.) In Stitch Painter I could toggle between the brick-grid view as I had drafted it from the fabric, and the square-grid view showing each brick divided into its square-grid twins. To double the scale, each square-grid unit now represented one nal in width and four picks of weaving instead of two picks. If I wanted to weave by the four-picks-per-talim-line method, I could read my talim instructions directly from the square-grid diagram. But that is not what I want to advocate.
Designers with access to carpet CAD programs can begin to unlock the designs in fabrics or talim based on the two-picks-per-talim-line method if they allow twice as many grid-units in width for the expected number of nals, and then always colour-in those grid units two-at-a-time. It requires doing by eye what a brick-grid-capable program provides, but it is still possible with more commonly available square-grid-based programs.
Combine side-by-side square units in pairs as a brick representing one nal woven in two picks. The next row of units combine to show the bricks overlapping by half. The third row of bricks aligns vertically with the first row. In other words, two rows of bricks account for – and give somewhat the appearance of – the four picks of weaving that it takes to repeat the 2/2 twill weave-unit. Note that no space is given to represent the warp colour, which is understood to be present throughout, as if it were the lines of the grid.
The isolated square units at both ends of the same row usually combine to form one brick or nal of the same colour, at the point where the pattern repeats. Individual square units can also be used to represent “half” nal notations within talim lines, a sign of extremely fine detail and another level of difficulty for the weaver.
Being prompted to double the scale of the design reminded me of the principle that the aim of the on-screen design is to resemble the end result, to enable the designer to visualize and improve it. How to apply it to weaving depends on how the weaver – or bead-weaver or embroiderer – translates it with his or her usual practices. Two picks or four, nals stacked or staggered – the grid-units can be interpreted as needed.
Though it looks similar, the modern practice of square-grid designing and four-picks-per-talim-line weaving is incompatible with the old designs – too many picks extends the design lengthwise, or else only half as many grid-units are available to represent details.
Fresh designing on a brick grid is more flexible and subtle than on a square grid, and new instructions for each two picks of weaving doubles the resolution of the design in the lengthwise direction – the easy direction. To add more details in the sequence of each talim line – more bobbins – that’s the hard way.
I keep saying: Yes, there are twice as many lines of instructions, but the number of picks of weaving is the same. Add to that, the number of bobbins in use is the same because chances are that the same bobbins will be used in the second line of instructions, just slightly differently to give better shape of a detail, or smoothness of line.
When I discovered it for myself, I wanted to share this work-around that would allow the drafting of two-picks-per-talim-line designs using square-grid carpet CAD software. Somewhere, there are admired antique fabrics with no documentation, and treasured old talim papers with dimly-remembered designs or hidden problems. These should not be given up for lost, or unrepeatable.
Next: mapping designs from antique kani fabrics.
peter harris, tapestryweaver 