Rainbow Plaid
I like plaids and stripes because the patterns are based on the same technology that is used to make the fabric, namely weaving. Just set up your loom with colored yarn in the right sequence, and you get a pattern. Printed patterns, on the other hand, require an unholy marriage of printing technology with weaving technology. It’s just not right.
Computer screens, with their rectangular grids of pixels, are well-suited for simulated weaving. It may be hard to see, but this plaid is constructed as if horizontal and vertical threads, each thread a single color, are woven in an over-and-under pattern, with each pixel taking the color of the thread that is on top at that point.
Traditional plaids tend to be drab because the traditions where formed before the invention of synthetic dyes (mauveine in 1856). The patterns are simple because only simple patterns were possible before the Jacquard loom in 1801. The Jacquard loom was the first programmable machine and a precursor of the computer.
So here I am using computers inspired by looms to generate a traditional woven pattern! I can use any colors I want, and I can generate hundreds of variations before choosing one I like. The only thing missing is physical cloth.