Jacquard weaving

This is the design I created for my first Jacquard weaving.  It is derived from a 17th century sketch of a man's interpretation of the 'topsy turvy' nature of the world if it were run by women.  The scene is occurring in a spinning room where women would congregate on a daily basis (originally for the purpose of conserving light sources like candles and wood for fires).

I drew the spindle and distaff image seen in the background and used it in a repeat network to reference the spinning room as well as the act of spinning and it's relationship to the sexual imagination of a man (which, according to my reference image, involves a lot of spanking and aggressive making out to the point of knocking large objects over.)

With this type of weaving I design my image and scan it into Photoshop to do some tweaking as well as assign different weave structures for different shades of grey (a process which can take several hours to get just right) and then program it into a computer which tells the loom which heddles to lift.  When I weave this image I will only need to press on one treadle with my foot, and as I through the shuttle the image will slowly appear.  I think that the figures in this image look a little cut-and-paste but am hopeful that they will translate more effectively in the form of cloth.