Fiber Adventures

Day 335: A friend recently remarked that she enjoys following my "fiber adventures," and the term "adventure" seemed particulary apt, given that I love to experiment with new techniques and colour treatments. Currently, I'm on a "shaded" binge which began with wanting to use up a small ball of space-dyed 8/2 cotton. The result was the lovely purple and blue scarf I featured here on September 6. A survey of my stash didn't yield any more variegated thread, so I grabbed three closely allied colours of #3 perle cotton and used them to make an inkle-woven band. By arranging the warp with the two medium-hued shades on either side of the darker colour, the finished band had the shimmery appearance of having been made with a variegated thread. I used the same principle to warp the "autumn" band shown in the lower image. The background is brown, and the floats are made with yellow, orange and rust. I must confess that this was not the pattern I originally intended to weave. I inadvertently wound on two extra warps, leaving 13 threads for the floats instead of 11. It would have been difficult to remove them, so I changed the pattern instead. The piece in the upper photo utilizes a fortuitous find for the stripes. Although I had no more space-dyed thread in my stash, as I walked out of the loom room, my eye fell on the bin where I keep my shuttles. One of them contained approximately 100 yards of perle cotton in a colourway called "Mexicali" which I had once used in a tablecloth. I've been trying to figure out how best to use it, and decided to align the colour changes as I'd done with the shaded scarf. However, the Mexicali was a hand-painted thread, so the transitions are more irregular, with the occasional fleck of odd colour appearing out of sequence. Even though the towels are a simple tabby weave, the excitement of "adventure" is held in those space-dyed threads.

Double Experiment

Day 312: While in the realm of science, it would be bad form to conduct two simultaneous experiments on a single subject, my experience as a fiber artist is sufficient that I felt I could predict the outcome of one with a tolerable level of accuracy, to wit, using a variable dent reed for the first time on my rigid heddle loom. The reed is designed to accommodate two or more different weights of warp thread in the same piece, but there are limitations. The sections are a fixed width, so a little extra planning is required. I had 136 yards of heavier cotton thread which I wanted to use up, plus two balls of lighter weight space-dyed cotton with one shade which matched that of the heavier cotton. Consultation with a pocket calculator told me I could make a 6' scarf with two bands of the heavier thread separated by a wider band of space-dyed thread in addition to outer bands of the same space-dyed thread plus a heavier selvedge. However, I wanted to maximize the space-dyed thread to create a "painted" look, i.e., I wanted to warp it so that the colour changes more or less matched up to make a transition zone between the four hues in the thread. For weft, I had two choices: lavender or Pacific blue. I opted for Pacific blue, hopefully allowing the blue-green areas of the scarf to dominate. That was the second experiment, and I am happy to report that it worked out as planned. The effect is subtle and pleasing to the eye.