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Wednesday, February 18, 2015

6 Yard Experiment

I'm not sure where this is headed. I have six yards to play with and I intend to experiment and have fun. Hopefully in the end at least one section will be worthy of fulfilling the warp's original intent which is to be a colourful garden banner.

My initial experiments are not shown. They turned out so poorly that I unwove them and started again. I have discovered that my sett is a little too loose to show the pretty warp colours nicely without using great care in placing the weft, and the weft itself needs to be very fine or it completely obscures the rainbow warp.

  Not sure where this is headed! 

So my plan at this point (subject to change as my creative muse guides me) is to weave about 32" of this very loose, gauzy effect, then cut it off, resley the reed with a closer sett, and carry on experimenting. I figure a closer sett will give me more weft options.

In the meantime I'll continue on weaving as I am now for the planned 32". I'll see how that looks off the loom. Because it is so loosely woven it might have a tendency to collapse and become "sleazy". If that happens it may be subjected to some experimental felting. When that is done I might decide to add interest with some surface embellishing.

This semi-transparent effect is being achieved by using one black wool weft strand, that is about equal in thickness to the coloured warp strands, alternating with a very, very, fine silver thread. I'm hoping the silver strand will sparkle in the sun when the weaving is hung in the garden.




2 comments:

Gene Black said...

It looks great. I am wondering what the the silver thread is. (fiber, brand etc) I think I might want some of it.

Marlene said...

Sorry Gene, the silver thread was a destashing gift from a friend. It is completely unmarked. I suspect it may be old enough that she would have no recollection of the source.