6 for June

I’ve gotten six silk scarves woven and finished so far for June. I still intend to warp my loom with that lovely blue-green tencel I hand painted, and believe I can get it woven off pretty easily before the end of the month.

First I put on a warp of plain blue silk, threading the loom in a huck lace pattern I’ve used before. I used a slightly lighter shade o blue silk for the weft, and wove away.

After it came off the loom I decided that this was the scarf to add beads to in the fringe, and luckily found some that were perfec for it in my stash.

After this all blue scarf I decided to try and achieve some iridescence by using a red weft. I decided on a burgundy cashmere-silk blend, one that is so fine I had to use 2 strands together to approximately equal the weight of the 30/2 silk warp. It isn’t personal my favorite piece, but I hope it will call to someone else.

In this closeup you can see the lace design, and how light and airy it is, better than in the all-blue version. You can also see a bi of not-so-nice selvedge.

I obviously did something wrong in my calculations, because I thought I could get a short cowl out of this warp, too, but nope. I was at the end. So be it.

So then I put on that hand painted silk warp, the one that turned out very differently than expected.

As an aside, I asked my dye teacher about the difference in colors between the tencel and the silk, and she concurred, the two fibers dye very differently. It’s the difference between a plant fiber (tencel) and a protein fiber (silk). Still, when I showed her the photos of the two, she was shocked at just how dramatically different they were. She told me that cotton will turn out similar to tencel, as they are both cellulose based, but not the same. So, from here on, whenever I paint any fibers, I’ll make little butterflie of yarn of the other two fibers and paint them, too, to see the results. At least I’ll try to remember to do so.

I decided to thread the loom with a huck lace draft that I spent HOURS working out a few months ago. I may have blogged abou it; I can’t remember. Anyway, I had a few threading errors, which isn’t overly common for me, and had to tie some replacement heddles to fix them. I dislike tying those heddles and am far from quick at it, but it beats doing a ton of unthreading to correct errors in the middle of a piece, even when we’re only looking at about 240 threads.

I tried a medium purple silk weft that I hoped would bring out the purples I’d intended when I dyed the yarn. I had to weave several inches and then walk away from the loom to be certain, but when I came back a few hours later – YUCK! I really hated i It made what I thought were garish colors even more so, adding to the overall unpleasant look with the dark weft. Since the weft and warp were both silk, I didn’t want to waste either, so I unwove those several inches to start again. I went with the rule: black brightens other colors, gray muddies them, and white mutes them. Muting what what I wanted, so I picked a natural cashmere- silk weft, again doubled to approximate the 30/2 silk warp. I was very pleased with it as I was weaving, and with the final result.

In fact, I like the scarf well enough that I decided to spend the extra time to add a bit of pizzaz to the fringe, this time twisting tiny pearlized seed beads into each bundle of fringe.

I thought I’d planned enough warp length for one fringed scarf, one short cowl, and one long cowl. However after my experience with the blue warp (above), I figured I’d better approach the project a bit differently than usual. I wove the fringed scarf, then the short cowl so that the third piece would be as long as it could, whether that was a long or short cowl.

In my continuing desire to use up my stash, I only had a small amount of lavender cashmere-silk so decided to use that for the short cowl. This isn’t a great photo, but I’m happy with the piece.

Time for the long cowl. I decided to stick with pale wefts, and chose some 60/2 pink silk. I knew I’d need to use it doubled, and the 2 partial cones of pink I had were different shades, but I figured they’d work fine together, 1 of each. And they do.

Surprisingly, I had enough warp left for another short cowl. This time I picked baby blue 60/2 silk. I only had one partial cone of i so had to wind some onto a tube first so I could double it for weft. I really like this one, too, although again it’s not a great photo.

I just realized that none of those photos shows off the huck trellis pattern I am proud of, so here it is. Need a wif? Let me know.

So six down, three to go by the end of the month. I’ll be ahead of the game.

June 15th, 2018 | 

I love portable projects

Last week I had to spend 8 hours at the Weaving & Fiber Arts Center so that HVAC techs could fix a problem with our heating and cooling. I brought lots of things to do, some for the Center, some for me. As always, I didn’t get them all done — one of them was writing a blog post.

I did bring lots of clean pillowcases and my sewing machine to make bags for the upcoming season. Got them all cut, but only about half of them sewn. So when we had a stunningly beautiful day on Thursday, moderate temperatures, pleasant breeze, I brought my things outside and finished the sewing in the shade in my backyard.

I was wishing my looms were so easy to move. Only the rigid heddle and the tapestry loom are. I generally only use the rigid heddle to demo at shows, and the tapestry thing is new to me and will likely never be for sale, so I am tied to my floor looms in my studio. Gorgeous though it is, isn’t not outside.

Several days ago, while I had a warp on the loom, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to dye two warps that would be wove in June – probably my last before the show season starts. So I prepared and dyed one warp in tencel and one in silk. The last few times I’ve dyed I not only made careful notes about the formulas I used to mix my colors, but also saved actual samples of the dyed yarn. It assured that I got what I’d planned for in my blue and green tencel warp.

The silk? Not so much. I wanted blue-violet, red-violet, and periwinkle. Like the purple-blue half of the tencel in this photo (this is two chains wound together).

What I got is COMPLETELY different! Not. Even. Close.

It started in the basement. I’d made note that when I painted on the blue-violet and red-violet on the tencel that they both looked quite gray. Not so on the silk; they both looked bright. But then after they were batched, rinsed and dried, there wasn’t a bit of blue in the violets, only fuschia, and the supposed periwinkle was a pale blue. Sigh.

Honestly, I think it’s as straightforward as the difference in the fibers, but only future dyeing will confirm that or blow holes throug it. Double sigh.

So what did I have on the loom while I did the dyeing? A silk warp, transitioning from solid blue at one selvedge to solid green at the other. I threaded and tied up the loom for one of my favorite patterns, that I’ve called feathers. I also mix it up by treadling as zigs instead of feathers. That’s what I did for the first scarf, with a black warp.

When I started weaving this scarf, I thought I was using black silk, but after I got several inches woven I realized it was tencel on my bobbin. Rather than unweave those several inches, I shrugged my shoulders and continued with the tencel, which is a bit heavier than the silk warp.

Interesting how the colors play differently with the pattern on the two sides of this scarf, isn’t it?

For the second scarf I wove with a very fine purple cashmere-silk blend. This scarf is SOOOOO lightweight.

It is, as Mary Poppins would say, practically perfect in every way.

Finally I wove a long cowl with a medium blue silk in the same weight as the warp.

I’ve gotten 2 more silk scarves woven, but am still working on finishing, so you’ll see them next time.

June 9th, 2018 |