Hey, more snow! We had quite a good weekend, with sufficient sunshine to cheer us up and even bring about a bit of thawing. This morning, however, it was heavily overcast and snowing again.
Grumpy bit follows – skip to ** to miss grump.
The cooncil are allegedly busy clearing roads, but they haven’t done any of the residential streets in our area and these are becoming decidedly scary. We are at the end of our (very short and steep) street, and the main road below us has been cleared – so at the bottom of our (very short and steep, note the “steep”) street is a wall of mushy snow. Want to know how many cars have been dug out of said snow over the weekend? I’m afraid you’ll have to ask someone else, ’cause we lost count.
End of grumpy bit **
But I have been consoling myself with those luxury fibres, as I mentioned earlier, and can now share some results. It is fun to try out different tie-ups for the parallel threadings and see what happens. Some combinations give very clear areas of each of the different warp yarns, like the one I had on the loom the other day. This had two adjacent 3/1 sections in the tie-up and this side of the scarf is decidedly warp-faced.
Whereas in this one I separated the 3/1 areas with some 2/2 and the result appears to me more blended (but note that the threading is different too, so it is not a direct comparison). I set up one half of the threading in Fibreworks, copied it, and then “dragged” the copy so that it is offset from the original – that is why the red silk areas on the left correspond to multi-coloured cashmere areas on the right.
I am currently weaving in Tencel, and am thinking of calling this one “Northern Lights”…
If this all seems a bit random — well, it is and it isn’t. I am trying to keep a balance between planning and improvising: planning enough to know that I have sufficient yarn for my threading, for instance, but improvising in the tie-up and treadling so that the results are varied and I can learn more about these structures. And don’t get bored. In the circumstances, this is an important consideration.
“of cashmere and consolation” was posted by Cally on 6 Dec 2010 at http://callybooker.co.uk
Alison
Ohhh, WOW. I love the offset effect on the second one, and cannot stop staring at the ‘Northern Lights’. Seriously – I keep coming back to look at it. (Also? I love the view back through the reed to the heddles. They’re all 3D and staggered!)
Cally
Thanks, Alison. I am pleased with how NL has come out – the multi-coloured yarn was quite pale and blobby on its own, but I think it has found its ally in the plain purple! The picture is a bit startling, perhaps because of the angle (had the camera on the tripod, and couldn’t be bothered to raise it to the right height! my laziness knows no limits). The weft yarn almost seems to be a scaffolding on top of the warp; quite structural anyhow.
Dorothy Stewart
Hi Cally – I love these scarves but my favourite is the first one ! I can tell it feels very soft and drapey !
You are not alone with your snow clearing problem, I think it is replicated across the country right now !
Charlotte Engstad
The Northern Lights scarf resembles the natural phenomenon very much, and we see it almost daily when the sky is clear. Great work!
I love the colors of scarf nr. 2 very much, they are so warm and happy.
Regarding the snow, I have to admit that we up in the very far north are quite amused by all the problems the snow causes further south. Aside from that, I really hope your street gets cleared soon.
Cally
Yes, we are easily overwhelmed down here! To be fair to the “authorities”, it is hard for them to know what to invest in – spend a few million quid preparing for snow and it is bound to be winter of torrential rains, or vice versa… Thank goodness weavers get to stay indoors 🙂
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