|
|
Still a bit under the weather, although improving (I only took 5 naps yesterday), I’m happy to share things I wove just before the creeping crud (aka RSV) hit.
Tammy’s colorway Berries is a new one to me. I ordered it in my order-red-yarn frenzy. In my usual fashion, I had her dye me some skeins of the variegated and one skein each of two different coordinating solids. I wove them all with a simple point twill threading and treadling. On the right is the same variegated weft as warp, on the left is the darkest solid, in the middle the lightest solid.
I really like these three. Part of the reason is the color, for sure, but part of it is also the weaving pattern. Clean and simple, so that neither the pattern nor the color needs to take a back seat. They play nicely together. This reinforces what I’ve been (re)learning lately, that when I’m using variegated yarn, I must use simple threadings and treadlings. I can remember this, I’m sure.
For a while at least.
Your turn: what lessons do you need to learn again and again?
Fun: taking care of my adorable grandson for 2 days so his parents can have a night away just for themselves. It’s even fun, of a different sort, I admit, when I have to learn how to use their baby carrier so I can carry him around the house all day on Monday because that’s all he wants in his “I don’t feel good” mode. Well or sick, he’s a gem, and it’s only the tiniest part of my brain that’s worried about the fact that I’m not weaving for these 2 days.
Not Fun: getting the virus he had. I’ve been down for 4 days now, spending most of my time in bed or on the couch, and a little bit of time working on my rigid heddle loom. I do need to weave off the warp I have on there, which I put on in December for a specific purpose, because I have a woman waiting for a sample that I need to do on that loom. Plus, before I know it, it’ll be time to do weaving demos.
Fortunately, February had been a great month for me, productivity wise, until the Fun/Not Fun.
So here’s the next installment of weaving I did before hitting the couch. It’s Tammy’s beautiful colorway, Blue Violets.
I wove these scarves in a pattern I’ve used many times – Swedish lace blocks running along both edges, with plain weave in between. This simple look is always well received, probably because it’s light and airy and looks great with everything.
As always, these scarves wove up quickly on my counterbalance loom.
Time for another nap now.
Magic Kingdom, that is. That was my next choice for weaving scarves. I’d purchased enough of this colorway and its coordinating solids to set up the loom for four scarves, and decided to thread it using the draft I’d just finished with the Cayenne.
The Magic Kingdom yarn is an 8/2 tencel, so it’s a relatively fine gauge fiber with a nice sheen and lovely drape.
I started on the left, and wove a scarf with a solid forest green weft, treadling in pattern for the length of the scarf. Green isn’t usually my color, so I can’t say how well my customers like it; they don’t have many green options. While I like this particular green, and I like the Magic Kingdom colorway, I thought the green overpowered the variegation, so didn’t want to do a second scarf in it.
I moved on to the solid azure weft. I like this one better than the green, but it’s quite bright, and I thought perhaps something darker would be a better sell. So I moved the scarf on the far right, using a solid dark purple rayon. For both the azure and purple scarves, I treadled several inches of pattern on each end of the scarf, with a straight twill in between.
I liked the purple, too, but thought it was now a bit too dark. I could see that if I did a plain weave the variegation of the Magic Kingdom would show up better, so, after much consideration, decided to weave the final scarf with the dark purple tabby weft. I knew that with the tencel warp and rayon weft, the scarf would still retain a nice drape, even with a tabby weave. It’s second from the right in the photo, and surprised me by being my second favorite. (The azure hit number one on my chart.)
I guess one of the things I need to learn from this set of scarves is sometimes simple pictures are best.
I remember reading this book to my preschool class about a hundred years ago. But it’s a lesson that I often forget when I’m weaving. I want to do complex designs, and I want to use beautiful hand painted yarn, and those two often fight with each other for top billing. I need to make sure they both get a chance to shine by showing them off to their best advantage.
I wonder how long before I forget that lesson……
After the Poinsettias, next I wove Tammy’s Cayenne colorway. Despite several attempts at photographing them, and plenty of time spent in Photoshop adjusting the color, I can’t seem to get the colors in the photo to match real life. I have noticed that it tends to be particularly difficult to get red right. I wonder why?
In any case, here are the Cayenne scarves.
On the left is a scarf with Cayenne for both warp & weft. As usual, it has a roughly plaid look, minimized because I used a twill weave. Had I woven tabby, the plaid would be more pronounced.
For the scarf in the center I used a solid dark reddish-brown (or brownish-red) cotton. Personally, I like this one the best of the three. The colors play nicely together, and I’m happy with the pattern I developed.
For the last scarf in the warp, I thought I’d try punching up that pattern with black cotton. Just with the darkest Poinsettia scarf, this one didn’t have the final outcome I wanted. As you can see, I decided to alternate the treadling on this scarf, too. I’m okay with that pattern, but I prefer the solid treadling.
I think I need to back off a bit with all of my color experiments, go back to the successes I’ve had in the past. I do like the weaving pattern, though, and will use it again.
I can do many things, but unless we’re talking about either dandelions or daisies, I can’t weave with flowers, as the name of this post might imply.
However, Tammy’s beautiful Poinsettia colorway* is so lovely, I think you’ll forgive me when you see the handwoven scarves I made from her yarn. I couldn’t wait to weave with this! I’ve used her Poinsettia several times in rayon chenille, but this would be the first time I’d used it for a lightweight scarf. I bet it won’t be the last.
I actually started with the scarf that’s in the middle. It’s a simple point twill in both threading and treadling, using the Poinsettia yarn for both warp and weft. I wove two scarves like this, 1 to sell, 1 to give as a gift. They’re the top portion of the draft below.
On the right I used a burgundy rayon and modified the treadling slightly, extending the points (the bottom portion of the above draft). I thought the darker rayon would point up the reds and make them pop. I was less than excited about it.
I really like to weave different patterns, so I didn’t want to go back to the 1st point twill for the 4th scarf on the warp. I modified my tie up and stayed with an easy-to-treadle pattern that included some plain weave right along with the twill. This is the scarf on the far left in the picture. Can’t really see the pattern? That’s okay, neither can I. In person the pattern doesn’t show up much.
What is interesting, however, is the feel of the two all-Poinsettia scarves. The one on the left, with the plain weave included, feels less smooth, more grainy, than the center scarf that’s all twill. It does make sense, I just hadn’t thought about it.
*So what’s a colorway anyhow? It’s a combination and arrangement of colors. For the Poinsettia yarn, the individual colors in the yarn don’t jump out at you when you look at the finished weaving. The colors are more subtle than that, providing depth and richness.
 If you look at the yarn itself, you can see that there are at least 2 reds and a purple. Plus, when yarn is hand painted, where the colors touch they blend and create more shades and tints.
If you look at the Magic Kingdom yarn, it’s a bit easier to see all the different colors.
|
|
