Fire Series Scarves

I'm working my way through the remaining scarves in the fire series run. Here are some pictures. This is the second one, which used the red-violet weft:



An interesting thing is how different the colors in the cloth look if I go to the other side of the loom and look at it from the opposite selvedge:



Could be a totally different piece, right?

The third scarf used the brick red weft:



And scarf number 4:



In this shot, you can see the black tarp clamps I use with cords and weights as a sort of inverted temple. (The clamps are at the top of the picture, right before the fell of the cloth.) You can also see the black hem tape I use to measure the weaving in progress, pinned along the right-hand selvedge. The goal is a 72-inch scarf (not counting fringe) after finishing, and with a silk warp that means I want to weave about 80 inches before finishing. I find that an actual measuring tape is too stiff and cumbersome to pin to the selvedge, so I measured and cut some hem tape to use instead.

I have several of different lengths of hem tape, and depending on what I'm weaving, I'll use a different tape. For example, if I'm working on cloth with lycra stripes that will "gather" the cloth, I need to weave about 100 inches before finishing - and that usually ends up something like 68 inches after finishing. I figure if the scarf is all pouffy with gathers, it doesn't need to be so long because the wearer is less likely to want to do the Isadora Duncan thing and wrap it around the neck a bunch of times...

Also, I should mention that for scarf #4 I changed my approach to weft color, and decided to try some orange silk I had in my stash that is just a little deeper in value than the orange thread in the warp. I wanted to see what would happen if the weft was pretty close to one of the warps colors, and I kind of like the result. Here's a close-up:



If you click the picture, to bring up the full-size version, you can see the areas that are mostly fuchsia and orange warp (with only a little orange weft showing), the areas that are primarily fuchsia warp and orange weft, the areas that are orange warp and orange weft, and the areas where the deeper orange weft predominates. It's a subtle difference, but really does show up well in the cloth. I can't wait to see how it looks after wet-finishing!

The royal blue weft I had dyed in the original batch is going back into the stash. It'll get used sooner or later on something in a blue-green-purple colorway.

The last scarf in the run is using the dark blue-violet weft from the original batch of weft colors, and I've only woven about 8 inches so far. I probably won't get it finished for a while. Pictures later.

DH and I will have a booth at the Contemporary Craft Market show in Santa Monica next weekend (June 8, 9, and 10) and I've got a stack of scarves that still need to have their fringes plied and then get washed and pressed before the show - the wood-grain series among them. So the flame series scarves will probably have to wait until after that to be finished; they'll be ready for the ACC San Francisco show in August.

If any of my readers are in the LA area next weekend, and want a postcard good for two free admissions to the Contemporary Craft Market show, send a message to sandra (at) 3springshandworks (dot) com with your snail-mail address, and I'll send a card to you. The show is at the Santa Monica civic center. I hope to see some of you there!