Something to Think About

I liked the leafy/flamy draft I created for the Refinery/Culturally Routed giant ribbon, so when Arts Marketing asked me to weave two red shawls in a short time recently, I thought I'd weave at least one in that draft, but in different sized/textured yarns, different warp color placements, and in a different scale, to make it softer.

Boy, did that not work. I forgot that I designed the ribbon so there are lots of plain weave areas to make the structure sturdy. Some of the lacy areas that let the light through in the stiff yarns just fulled and felted when woven in soft wool, and I missed the as-long-as-practicable floats. And most of all, I designed it to allow for frequent changes of weft colors, but it looked dislocated when woven in one weft in a bigger piece. So the red shawl sample in five reds looked dull and stiff, so I reworked the tie-up.

I still like the first draft, however, so I might try it some other time, perhaps in skinny cottons, because I'm still too chicken/cheap to try something bold in good silk. I'll also change where one repeat starts/ends if I'm going to change weft colors again.

This is the draft for this piece.