Category: shawls
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Softly, Softly
tied on ready to start spreading the warp out throw three picks before bringing the beater forward weave 6 picks in total. The wedges between the warp bouts will have evenly filled in and you’re ready to weave! These shawl warps have turned out to be the ideal ‘recuperation’ projects. The cloth is very loosely…
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Something to Look Forward To….
By the time you read this (I’ve scheduled it to be posted Friday evening) I ought to have arrived in Montreal – barring travel challenges. This is, however, an ‘easy’ trip – from here to Vancouver (at 6 am – there otta be a law!) and then from Vancouver to Montreal, arriving there around 5 pm…
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One Step Forward
Now that the wool/bamboo/silk yarn is all used up, I’ve turned back to the silk gimp warps. I dyed about 2/3’s of them a few weeks ago so I’ve got lots of warps to weave – although there are still 10 left to be dyed (I think). That will have to wait until later in…
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Makin’ Tracks
As anticipated the shawls woven with the singles exotics have tracked beautifully. The medium brown is a 100% alpaca, the white weft is a mohair, wool, angora blend. The alpaca is much stiffer and hairier but after a good hard press feels quite nice. The mohair/wool/angora has a lovely soft feel. I’m really pleased with…
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Buckets O’ Shawls
These buckets contain about 36 shawls. There are more upstairs in the process of fringing, or in the laundry area where I wet finished three this morning, plus the 3 last warps to be woven. The 3rd last is half done and the last two will go into the loom as soon as I can…
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Better Living Through Chemistry
Another example of how light values dilute (above) and darker values (below) intensify their neighbouring colours…..the light yarn is a pale heathered blue, the darker colour a very deep navy – almost black Well, what they say is true – it is much easier to prevent nausea than get rid of it once it develops. …
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In Praise of Plain Weave
The next warp is beamed, ready to thread. I’m too tired to do that tonight, however, so I’ll leave it until tomorrow afternoon. It’s interesting that what drew me to weaving was complex patterning on as many shafts as I could afford. And yet for the last two years I’ve been weaving a whole lot…
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Cloth Storage System
One of the reasons I bought the AVL was the cloth storage system in conjunction with the auto cloth advance. Here is the first shawl on the warp. I tie on to the apron which is long enough to go from the back of the loom through to the front beam. The cloth is long…
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Value
Here is a good example of ‘value’ in terms of colours. The white weft has diluted the warp colours. The dark navy blue weft has enhanced them. This is what the mantra: White dilutes Grey muddies Black intensifies means. This photo also shows why nearly every answer to a weaving question begins with “It depends…”…
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Reprieve
With chemo delayed a week I’ve been using the reprieve to work my way through the shawl warps. Here is my work table with boxes of filled pirns, spools awaiting warp yarn, more cones of weft yarn to be wound onto pirns, and in the foreground a bucket of skeins waiting to be wound onto…