If you‘re a subscriber, you‘ve likely seen our emails alerting you that the latest issue of Handwoven is on its way to your mailbox, or that it’s ready to view online. We tell you a little about what you’ll find in the issue, and we include downloadable WIFs for most of the projects we print.
You may be wondering what WIFs are! Before I get to that, let’s talk about weaving software.
Weaving software
You don’t need a computer to design a weaving draft—graph paper, a pencil, and your focused attention work just fine. Many weavers would even argue that they better understand how structures work after they‘ve spent time creating drawdowns on paper.
One place where weaving software excels, though, is in making it nearly effortless to explore options. Want to add a threading repeat? Use (or remove) tabby? Change the tie-up or treadling? Use a different set of colors? Regardless of what you change on a draft, the updated drawdown appears on your screen in the blink of an eye for your further consideration.
Weaving software does many other helpful things—including keeping track of the number of heddles needed per shaft or of warp and weft float lengths, or quickly changing a draft’s treadling into a liftplan.
There are a number of programs for handweavers, including: Fiberworks PCW, PixeLoom, TempoWeave, Weaveit, and WeavePoint. Some of these are Windows-only programs, and some also have Mac versions. Most have video and tutorial links that teach weavers how to use their tools.
What‘s a WIF?
WIF stands for Weaving Information File. It’s a non-proprietary file format for weaving drafts that lets you open and work with a file from someone else, even if they used different weaving software than yours to create it. And the best way to open WIFs is with your weaving software—while you can open a WIF with a plain text editor and read the content, it won‘t be arranged to look or work like a draft.
When you have the WIF for a draft, you can use it to easily explore some of those options I mentioned above: make it narrower or wider, change the colors it uses, or try out a different treadling. In short, you can take a draft that’s almost exactly what you want to weave, and adjust it until it’s just right.
If you‘re ready to dip a toe into weaving software, we encourage you to ask your weaving friends what they use, and do some investigating of your own. Most of the weaving software companies noted above offer a free trial program download that lets you open a WIF and make changes to it, but you won‘t be able to save or print your work unless you purchase a license for the software.
Next steps
When you’ve got your software installed (a trial version is fine, but remember that you won’t be able to save or print your work), search the library to find the projects from an issue.
Click and download a WIF that appeals to you, and open it in your weaving program. Now get a cup of coffee or tea and settle in, because it’s time to play with the draft and make it your own!