Thrums: Simply Silk

Friday, February 6, 2026

Simply Silk

Yup, I'm back again.... the sun came out and so did the camera. It's so nice to have extra daylight once again and it will only get better from here on.

I was digging around in my three bins of silks (gulp) ... yes, 3 and decided it was high time to use some. I had small skeins of several colours but not enough of any one thing to do a substantial project such as two scarves (so to reduce loom waste). I thought about it and realized it was never going to be used unless I was willing to combine them, and do one singleton project.

I reckoned a colour and weave project such as houndstooth might be nice or a tartan. I have an 8 shaft draft from handweaving. net that is called "The Spirit of Scotland". I decided to make it a 4 shaft draft and looked at the colour arrangement and my colours were not close but close enough to say "inspired" by the Spirit of Scotland Tartan. 😉 The colours below were close approximations.... I almost changed the yellow thin stripes for white but left it as it. The yellow is opposite of purples and so provides a nice tug on the eyes.

Winding it was fun as the colours built up on the mill. It went quite quickly and I think winding the skeins into cakes took longer to do. 3 yards is a short warp. My shortest in years!

So what time I saved on winding was soon lost to weaving. It's a slow process changing colours and in some places, such as the smaller stripes, carrying colours neatly up the sides. I often wondered who thought up this great idea as a day's work was measured in inches..... and that would be me. 😳

But it was worth it. There's nothing like the soft hand of silk. I set it at 28 epi and I'm not sure that was correct as it covered the warp yarn in places. So not appearing like a proper tartan per se. It is an inspirational plaid project after all. Its all done now and I quite like the effect and colour mix together.