A New Season, A New Warp

The past few weeks it's been really hot in the West - in the 100-105(F) range at our house, and even hotter in some parts of Southern California that are usually mild. The hot spell finally broke on Saturday with a big thunderstorm, resulting in a beautiful stormy sunset and a downpour. Autumn is here! Today the forecast high temperature is 62(F).



I'm about halfway through beaming the next warp on the 24-shaft loom, using these three wood-dyed yarns:



From left, Monterey cypress, cocobolo, and a light grey-brown walnut, all on 20/2 Tencel.

These are some of the wefts I will use (although I'm not sure about the very dark brown):



From left, dark walnut (probably with some iron added) on silk, black acacia on silk, black acacia afterbath with a pinch of iron on 30/2 tencel, and pink ivory on silk. The last one was a big disappointment: The wood is light pink, the dyebath was bright pink, but as so often is the case, the red component in the color is fugitive, and it all went down the drain. What stuck on the yarn was a pretty butterscotch gold. I put the rest of the pink ivory chips into the compost - gold is easy to get from lots of other sources.

If you want to know more about extracting color from wood, go here for a link to a PDF document that outlines the procedure I use.