A Tale of Three

So this was nine yards of  8/2 tencel. Painted warp centre and solid 8/2 tencel borders.  I was weaving this (slowly) during a what felt like never ending heat waves and thinking of the cooler fall to come. As this is Labour Day, it should be here anytime.

Slowly as my right shoulder has been dictating my weaving time and days. I can do some but not as much as I would like. 

The picture below is right after coming off the loom and the scarves being separated.   Each looks so different and yet come from a similar base.  Reminds me of people.    😁

The painted warp came from Iridescent Fibres which sadly has stopped business as other adventures and obligations came along.    This warp was called Chardonnay Flagstones.   I sure wish I had taken a picture of the warp before I started to uncoil it to beam the loom. It was a transition of purple mauves, to golds and russet, to moss greens. A vineyard in the fall. 

I added black, purple and a soft gold as border details.

The draft used was a favourite:  16 shaft straight draw and twill progression treadling designed by the late Ingrid Boesel (of Fiberworks-PCW). Her drafts are now freely available at Handweaving.net   I used this draft before with a painted warp to amazing results and hoped to have a repeat. You can see it here

I leave the centre empty as I simply don't have the patience to enter the colours! 

The first scarf I used basic black as my weft and it actually shows the painted warp as close as it appeared before weaving started.  The colours are not all that vivid or intense as some of Carrie's other warp combinations (as shown in the link to the past project)

This time of year with intense sunlight ( and heat!) makes it difficult to photograph tencel outdoors with out bleaching away the colours.  Day after cloudless day went by until I finally got a day with some high cloud and I set up Judy outside.    I'm not a professional photographer so I simply do my best with automatic settings and try to get realistic colours.

So here are a variety of shots to get differing views..... Meet "Vineyard Midnight"

When it came time to weave scarf number two I auditioned several colours and my friend Lynnette (of Dust Bunnies Under My Loom blog) recommended navy blue.   It worked beautifully and I must say that this one is my favourite.  Meet "Vineyard Dusk"

I had one weaver say that the gold in the border looks like gold leaf!

For the last shawl I tried a colour or two and pulled them out..... and finally settled on weft colour Pompeii (now called red clay).  I call this scarf "Spice Market". It some how reminds me of the baskets of piled up spices in a bazaar somewhere like Morocco.  This scarf was about pushing my boundaries on colour.

The colours are a bit deeper and richer but the cloud cover was breaking down by this point. The last picture is the best colour wise.  *There seems to be a correlation between this scarf's colours and my spinning below, purely by accident... (really!)

                                                                        🍂 🍇 🍇🍂

Its been a hot and dry summer and the gardens are starting to look tired.  Lots of dew on the ground this morning so the change is under way.   I'm keeping a mental list of the chores needed to be done outside before things get cold and frosty.   

I have spent time this summer spinning and plying and enjoyed a break from endless projects pushing me. I quite like the slower pace and find it gives me time to really consider a project before it goes to the loom and becomes organized threads.    So they will appear here in time as they are ready.

So enjoy the Labour Day holiday  and we'll all resume our normal schedules starting tomorrow. 

🐿 🍂