Amethyst to Emerald

Although I’m still doing some off-loom work on those baby wraps, I decided my brain needed me to wind the warp for my next order. This started with an order for one rayon chenille shawl, but I have subsequently added an order for the second one on this warp. I’ve learned through experience that when I’m working with rayon chenille, I’m happiest when I warp for only two shawls at a time; with three my brain and my back get too distressed.

This is the line up of yarns I’d started with, and what both customers saw, although this shot has better lighting.

As I got to planning the exact layout, no matter what I did that aquamarine, the brightest color, 4th from the left in the line up, stood out like a sore thumb. All off, not good. I tried it in different locations in the line up, didn’t matter. Just wrong.

I laid out the yarns without that color to see if I liked it.

Yep. Makes me much happier. It is all a bit darker than I’d generally choose, so I figured I’d wind the warp with those colors, and then as I was threading, if I thought I needed a bit of lightness, I’d hang a thread or two of the aquamarine from the back beam and just substitute on the spot.

I wound bout one – amethyst to iris gradient with a touch of navy thrown in for even more depth. Isn’t that amethyst just wonderful?!

Then solid iris, still with a bit of navy, to a gradient with iris combo, to solid iris combo. Iris combo is a space-dyed variegation that is no longer available.

Bout three is iris combo gradient to blueberry. Ahhh. I like this. In fact I wound some extra threads of blueberry and will decrease some of the iris combo. At least that’s what I think right now.

Last but not least, blueberry gradient to hunter. Nice look.

I am appreciative of the fact that both of my customers trust my taste and my eye to choose the colors and layout well. I’m looking forward to beaming and threading this warp, but that won’t happen today. I’m going to go hopefully to finalize the grant submission for the Weaving and Fiber Arts Center, and then do the remainder of the off-loom work on the baby wraps.