First of all, I hope you are having a lovely time at this end of the year, and looking forward to a fuitful 2011.
During the month of December, I had a reading binge, (not weaving, but food and cookbooks; I went to the library to borrow one cookbook and walked into a library book sale and came home with these, plus the one book I borrowed. All hardcovers were $2, paperbacks were $1);
a baking binge, a Sketchbook Project Stint, then I wove
the dreaded alpaca warp, (from which I got four rather sorry-selvedged Log Cabin scarves; they haven't even been moved to the proverbial under-the-couch, but just get moved around with my foot when they get in the way);
then sampled and started weaving cashmere log cabin scarves.
The warp is in violet and yellow green, one touch closer than complementary.
I experimented with a few color combinations, staying loosely in the purple/green vs yellow/orange scheme. I noticed I was favoring the nuanced/muddy combinations this week, rather than the clear colors, and I think having watched a few movies featuring attractive 1950's French attires had something to do with it. I could have gone on sampling the whole eight meters of the warp, but decided it might be a too expensive of an exercise, so I wove my first piece in this combination.
One weft is the same violet as the warp; the other is a burnt orange; when in combination with the other yarns, the orange color looks more vivid, and the yellow green warp comes through as Tweed-like flecks. I keep thinking either I or my mother had a wool garment in this mood, but I may be just imagining it.
Lastly, Mom came across something interesting and sent me a sample.
This piece of cloth is two narrower pieces stitched together, and each piece was woven on a Marudai Kumihimo "loom". It comes from Iga Ueno in Mie Prefecture, city famous for one of the two main Ninja bases and Iga-yaki pottery. When you think about it, it's no surprise one can weave a flat piece of cloth on a Marudai, but Mom and I both had a "Doh!" moment on the phone.
I'd love to keep weaving the Log Cabin scarves, but I think I've finished less than half of the pages in for the Sketchbook Project, and I seen to have not a lot of weaverly things, I think I need to focus on that for a few more days.
Today was my parents' 55th anniversary.
2 comments:
Those log cabin scarves look pretty classicaly exciting to me. Would they improve with fulling?
They did; the samples are washed and pressed and dried like my normal scarves. As they are in cashmere, they feel lovely, but for a change I'm weaving in 18EPI, which gives them a bit of heft, comparatively, as opposed to being feather-light.
These are making me look into 1950's fashion in return. I don't think I was ever interested in the 50's before, I remember my mother wearing similar styles well into the 60's. The string-of-pearls look, sans real pearls. But the are sculpted and interesting. And I would wear them if I were shaped more suitable for these styles, and more importantly, if I weren't so hung up on comfort! LOL.
I've been listening to the audio book of Dawn French's biography as I weave these last few days.
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