Weaving A Gem Of A Life

Although I dearly love my handmade 4-harness counterbalance loom, it’s not very portable. My little, old LeClerc rigid heddle loom, on the other hand, moves around with ease. I really like taking the rigid heddle loom to shows and weaving actual pieces on it as much as possible during the show.

In general, two kinds of people stop and watch me weave — people who’ve never seen anyone weave anything, and people who’ve woven themselves, mostly years ago. If I’m anywhere near Buffalo, there are more people in that latter category than you might imagine. LOTS of people went to Buffalo State College and took weaving. Not just fine arts majors took this class; it was apparently quite popular.

Anyway, I was weaving with some of Tammy’s gorgeous hand painted bamboo yarn, in a fairly thick gauge to work in a 12-dent rigid heddle. I wanted to warp the rigid heddle loom for 3 scarves, so I knew that in order to fit it all on the back beam I’d have to wind under tension and use thin cardboard spacers, not the continuous roll paper I prefer. This went pretty smoothly.

For the first scarf, I used the same hand painted yarn for weft as I had used for warp.

As always on a scarf warp, this creates a somewhat regular plaid effect. People were fascinated to learn how hand painting is done, the reason the pattern repeats, and how different it would look on a wide warp.

For the second scarf I wove with a solid green weft.

Tammy also hand painted the solid color for me, specifically to coordinate with the variegated yarn. I often have her make coordinating solid colors, as I tend to prefer stripes over plaids. Fortunately, she’s really happy to do custom dyeing. I like the green scarf, even though I don’t find it as different visually from the plaid as I had expected.

Once those two scarves were woven, the front beam was about as full as it could get. There was no way it would hold the third scarf, so I had to cut the first two off the loom and re-tie. People were interested to watch that process, too, although it didn’t hold their attention for long. There were all surprised to feel the two scarves I had cut off — really hard and stiff. I explained that they would feel very soft and drape well after they were wet finished; I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have believed me if I hadn’t had several completed bamboo scarves. (I didn’t bother pointing out to them that the finished scarves were a finer gauge bamboo and would feel different.)

I wove the third scarf with one of Tammy’s coordinating solid blue yarns for the weft.

Obviously the blue is a very rich, intense color. It really pops the scarf. I think some people thought it was too much, but not me. I really like it.

Over the course of the two days, several people wanted to buy the scarves I was weaving at the show. I explained that they wouldn’t be ready for sale till the next show, and I think some of them will likely show up…not necessarily to buy those scarves, but because that’s also a well attended show.

Whether they saw those scarves being woven or not, I think people will be surprised by how different these three handwoven scarves, all made on the same warp, look with the 3 different wefts.

Your turn: how do you use color creatively?