Falling into rayon chenille

I got a warp for 2 rayon chenille shawls onto and off of the loom. I’m calling them Into the Blue. You can see why.

From left to right, I used up a bit of leftover handpainted Navy Black and then a bunch of handpainted Ocean Waves from Yarntopia Treasures. Then I did a gradient into Valley Yarns aquamarine. For the first weft I used that same very bright aquamarine. The second shawl is just a bit more subtle, since I used Valley Yarns Grayed Teal for weft. Both shawls are now off the loom, but I haven’t yet hemmed or wet finished, so don’t have those pix yet.

As I was planning this warp, something bad happened. I’ve been working really hard at using up my stash. But I realized that I needed to order some colors of rayon chenille to coordinate with what I had if I wanted to make more shawls. I prepared my order, which ended up being 15 one-pound cones! Clearly I couldn’t help myself. Isn’t it beautiful?

While I was waiting for the yarn to arrive I put another warp on the loom, this time in reds. I don’t have a name for this warp, so if feel free to suggest one. From left to right it’s Valley Yarns ruby, leftover Poinsettia from Yarntopia Treasures, followed by a paprika and burnt orange from who knows where. Instead of doing gradients I simply wound 1-1 thread repeats for a bit at each color change.

For the first shawl, which I’m about halfway through at the moment, I’m using burgundy weft with some narrow stripes of that burnt orange at each end. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how I’d like that orange, and was thinking I should have waited until I got the delivery and gone with purple, but I’m actually liking it. Not sure what I’ll use for the second shawl…I’ll try out a few things when I get there and decide.