Finished, changed, and started

Shortly after my last post I finished the two mobius wraps. Here’s the one with the purple weft.

I was surprised that I preferred the one with the black weft.

Then I quickly converted two rayon chenille shawls, which hadn’t attracted lots of attention at my shows, into mobis. I wove these shawls 12-18 months ago, so it was time to do the conversion. Here’s I’ve Got The Blues.

And then I did Caribbean.

You can see that I didn’t spend much time getting the wraps to lay correctly on Dolly. I have to get outside at the right time to have any shade in my yard and bright sun is way too bright. Then I have to deal with the the uneven-ness of my lawn and the breeze/wind, so I just snapped rather quickly. Since I’m not putting any of these up for sale on the web, it’s all okay with me.

I packaged up these two rayon chenille wraps, the purple Brilliant Gemtones, an open front cardigan, four cowls, and a scarf and mailed them off to the Copper Shop on the Roycroft Campus. The Campus attracts a lot of visitors between now and the end of the year and my work has sold reasonably well there. Plus my inventory there was low and I won’t have any other solo shows till next summer, so this made lots of sense.

Meanwhile, I know that towels sell well at the Weavers’ Guild Holiday Sale, so last month I hand painted some cotton in preparation. I started with some nondescript pinky-taupey yarn that’s been hanging around unused for a few years, and was happy with the way it turned out. Although there are several colors, they’re all somehow subdued, almost earthy, and I like them.

My plan was to hand paint in approximately 6″ sections of color so that each towel would have one length each color. We’ll see how well that works out.

I decided on a braided twill. I didn’t have any natural or white cotton in 8/2, so I used what I had on hand – 5/2. I sett the 8/2 hand painted cotton at 24 EPI and the natural 5/2 cotton at 16 EPI. It’s working out okay. Here’s the first towel on the loom, showing the progression of the colors.

I’m now on towel #5, each with a different weft color, and so far the dyeing is working out pretty well. Here’s a close up of the weave structure. This one has a baby blue weft.

Enough time spent in front of my computer for now – back to the loom!