The Last of the First Warp

After weaving all of the [confidential] panels on the first warp, plus a few gratuitous others, I decided to use up the last of the warp on an image interpreted in shaded satins.

Because the warp was such a loose sett (a requirement of the confidential project) an 8-shaft satin, with its possible 7 shades of grey, wasn't remotely a possibility. I could have just let the wefts pack in, but that would mean the light greys would be even lighter, and the dark greys would be light - too much weft in relation to the warp.

So I fiddled with an image that had enough contrast (I hoped) to render nicely in shaded 5-end satins. This warp was only *slightly* sleazy for 5-end satins :-)

Here's the original image:



And the image reduced to 4 shades of grey:



And the weaving, which has a weft of tussah silk, which I thought was a nice lion-ish sort of shade:



It's amazing how much detail can be captured with only 4 shades of grey.

I would have given this to my sister, whose birthday is in August, making her a Leo (and a Leo who avidly collects lions), but there are still too many lifting errors requiring needle weaving. I'll weave her another copy on the next warp, at a more appropriate sett for 8-end satin, giving more detail, and keep this as a sample.

Also, I doubt that I can weave much more on this draft, because the apron knots are getting within 20 inches of the rear-most heddles, and it's time to wind the new warp and start the tying-on process. (Hear that, Neki?)