Black and white and more

I’ve completed four pieces so far this month: three scarves and a shawl.

You saw the beginning of the new-to-me-Tara-Oftenorth weaving draft here. I wove off all three scarves, fringed, and wet finished them.

My favorite is still the first one, with the marine silk weft.

Although it works fine in closeup, I’m still not sure how well it will look when the whole piece is photographed at once, as is required for jury images.

For the second scarf I used sax, which is a pale silvery blue color. I like it better off the loom than I did on, but I the contrast of the colors doesn’t move me.

Because I really liked how close the marine and pansy were, and wasn’t excited by the sax and pansy, I decided to use a color that was closer for the third. I didn’t have what I wanted in silk, so chose a periwinkle tencel. It’s a tint of the pansy – the same color but with some white added; at least to my eye it is. The tencel is a bit thicker than the silk so the weave pattern is slightly elongated, but that’s okay with me.

Meanwhile I was working on the black and white shawl I’d started in the last post. I wove off the first one, cut it off the loom, fringed and wet finished it so I could decide if I needed to re-sley the reed closer for this undulating twill structure.

I like the hand of the piece and believe it to be stable, so I won’t be setting the warp closer for the next two shawls.

I am fine with the way the black dye ‘broke’ – separated into some of its component colors, with red coming out in some places and blue in others. It doesn’t detract to me.