An even dozen

I was pretty certain I wouldn’t hit my goal of 6-7 finished pieces for November, and I ended up with an even dozen. Here’s how.

In an earlier post I showed you the 2 cream shawls I wove from cotton and vintage synthetic, and 2 piano scarves still on the loom. That’s 4. As soon as those piano scarves were off I got started on two blue rayon chenille shawls. (I know I said twice already this season that I was done with rayon chenille, but apparently I wasn’t really.)

Here’s the first one, in the old/un-seamed version.

I wove many more inches for the second shawl on the warp so I could seam it. Here are front and back views.

So now I’m up to 6, right?

Then I jumped on the chance to demonstrate weaving at the Copper Shop on the Roycroft Campus on Small Business Saturday, hoping to increase my sales in that store. Started there on my rigid heddle loom, I finished the first scarf on that warp when I got home.
It has a hand painted rayon boucle warp and a rayon chenille weft. Previously I’ve only used rayon chenille as both warp and weft, so wanted to see how this would wet finish before I wove the second scarf on the warp. This is number 7.

I moved quickly and beamed a tencel warp I’d hand painted in rainbow colors back in October. I wove two regular scarves and one long cowl, each with a different weft color, all using the same treadling pattern ‘cuz I really liked it.

First is a yellow weft, that looked like a rainbow in sunshine.

Remembering the rule that black intensifies, next I used a black weft to make the colors pop. Personally my least favorite, but it’s okay.

For the long cowl I used a burgundy weft. I can’t decide if I prefer this or the yellow. I can tell you that I probably won’t use that many colors in a single warp again. It’s just too much.

That’s 10 finished pieces.

The last two were started when I wove them several months year ago. But I never finished them because I couldn’t come up with a finish that made me happy. Back in October when I was making all those buttons some friends suggested that I use buttons to finish the pieces. That made sense so I made buttons specifically for this purpose. Then I spent many evenings trying to make button loops that I liked. And then I made more buttons. And more loops. And tried interfacing of various weights inside. Finally I was happy with the results, which were rayon chenille collars, as they were too short to be called cowls.

That’s 12. Whew!

I sold both of the collars, the burgundy cowl, the Midnight Peacock seamed shawl, the boucle and chenille scarf, and several other pieces at the show last weekend. Now I need to get back to work on some Christmas presents, as well as returning to and/or starting some projects of my own.