No weaving today, but lots of preparations for weaving, both on the dobby loom and the jacquard loom.
The dyepots have been busy, and will continue so for a few days. I have an image of a parrot ready to weave on the jacquard loom. Here's the image, indexed to 12 colors (6 values of green, a red, and 5 values of ivory:
But first I need the right colors of yarn, so out came the dyepots, and some skeins of Bambu 12, which is about the right size to use with the 16/2 cotton warp on the jacquard loom.
The ivory for the beak is tricky. On the cone, Bambu 12 is really a bleached white, and I want a slightly off white. Pale colors are always difficult to dye, but I think I'm getting better at it, and the skein above should dry to the right sort of pale ivory.
While the dyepots were processing, I wound off skeins of 20/2 unmercerized cotton for a warp of towels.
As it happens, I had cones of both white and natural but not enough of either for the entire warp, so I wound equal quantities of both, and will dye them together and warp them end-on-end so that any slight hue differences won't matter. The smaller skein in front is 40/2 mercerized cotton for hems. It'll be dyed together with the warp yarns, to a very pale blue color.
I've got a lot of 30/2 mercerized cotton in various blues (left over from the last towel warp) that will be perfect for wefts for the body of the towels. I think I miscalculated the weft yardage for that last towel run, and ended up with twice the yardage I needed. Oh well. Oops. It'll be used this time.
The warp will be threaded to a straight draw, and I'll use a variety of drafts from handweaving.net - I have at least 30 drafts, which is more than I'll need for the length of warp I'm planning!
Then, the plan is to dye some 60/2 silk for scarves that will be woven using the drafts I posted pictures of yesterday. You know how it is: once you get in the dyepot groove, you should stay there for a while...
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
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1 comment:
yes,contrary to what people might think pale shades take a lot of dyeing mastery.
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