Design-A-Crow

Day 133: I'm quite taken with South America pebble weave. Not only is it fun to do on the inkle loom, I like the highly stylized designs. Birds are a common motif, but none of the patterns I've found thus far resemble a crow. The only logical course of action was to make my own, keeping within the strictures of the style. The "stitches" are long and narrow, so as a general rule, the traditional designs also appear somewhat elongated. Creating a shorter, stouter outline for my namesake bird was the primary goal in order to make it recognizable as a corvid. Several experiments with beak position had to be picked back and rejected, and although I was satisfied with the design on the left, I thought the beak looked like it belonged on a parrot rather than a crow or raven. Out of necessity, I reverted to the typical representation shown on the right: upturned, cawing to the sky. I also wanted to keep within the limits of 21 pattern threads, another factor which tends to stretch designs lengthwise. While my final draft might only be recognizable as a crow to someone who could make the association between the motif and my name, at least it doesn't look like a hummingbird. Now comes the second part of the challenge: reading the pattern the opposite direction to make the birds face right and left alternately. When I'm done, I'll have a custom strap for my ukulele/blues box guitar.