A blog reader contacted me the other day and asked if I’d ever designed a Greek alphabet for pin loom squares. I hadn’t. Till now.
Alpha through Omega
The Greek alphabet has 24 letters, 10 of which are totally different from English letters. Thought I could get away with only designing those 10 (because I’ve already designed the 26-letter alphabet), but no. In order to accommodate letters like Delta and Lambda, I had to squish and squeeze and minimize. Thus, I’ve had to redesign all the English/Greek letters to match the font of the new ones.
Test weaving got old, so some of the squares in the photos may look off-center or may have an occasional U3 that doesn’t look so good. Feel free (of course) to experiment adding or subtracting till the letter looks the way you want it to. Any samples that are off-center in the photo, that were also correctable (such as Kappa), have been redrawn on the design chart. There are a couple with multiple examples (Tau in particular). Either I couldn’t decide which I liked best or I got sick of reweaving.
AlphaAlphaBetaBeta—you can skip the green U3 if you want. It’s woven in the sample. It wasn’t possible to center the beta square any more than it is.GammaGammaDeltaDeltaEpsilonEpsilon—the green U3s are optional; they’re woven in the sample.ZetaZetaEtaEtaThetaThetaIotaIotaKappaKappa—this diagram has been redrawn to center the square. The sample has the green U3 woven, but I think it might look better without it.LambdaLambdaMuMuNuNuXiXiOmicronOmicronPiPiRhoRhoSigmaSigma—this design has been redrawn so it will be more centered on the finished square.TauTau (left)—this design corresponds with the darker orange square on the left. I didn’t include the light green stitches since it would have made this design taller than the others.Tau (right)—this design goes with the lighter orange square on the right. I added an extra row (R12) on the crosspiece because I thought it would look better. Then I doctored the square in Paint; shown below. (I got SO sick of weaving, unweaving, and reweaving this letter!)Tau (doctored photo)—this gives you an idea of how the second version of Tau would look if woven according to diagram instructions.UpsilonUpsilonPhiPhi (left)–this diagram corresponds to the red Phi on the left. I left out all the light green U3s.Phi (right)—this diagram corresponds to the pink Phi on the right. I couldn’t decide which I liked best.Note that both designs have one U3 in the “forbidden” R15 which makes them slightly taller than most of the others, but I couldn’t leave it out!ChiChiPsiPsi is another one I wove, unwove, and rewove a jillion times <sigh!>. I think this design corresponds best to other letters though I have another version that I thought looked better—it’s too big though; even this one is a bit tall.OmegaOmega—I can’t count the number of times I drew, redrew, wove, and rewove this design. This is the best looking one I could come up with.
Wow! Yeoman’s work, Sue! Congratulations!
Thanks! I’ve never heard the expression yeoman’s work before. Thank you for teaching me something new.
The Greek letters look awesome!
Thanks!