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| Ocean samples |
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| samples of the forest |
Although I still blog for Tuesday Weavers, and keep up the facebook page for them, I don't attend the actual Tuesday weaving sessions anymore. After my all-too-chaotic Mondays at work, I need a day of peace and quiet. I've been finding that serenity at home lately, and this week, it was filled with dyeing warps and skeins for the future.
I wanted one warp to be the colors of the ocean, and one to be forest greens. I found with the purple and gold bamboo warp I just finished how much fun it was to match the weft to the warp by hand-dyeing it, so I did some of that, too.
I used immersion dyeing for the forest wefts, and that was fine, but it took a long time. The Procion website says to immerse the yarn for 40 minutes, add soda ash and leave it for 50 more minutes. Stir frequently while it sits. And I did it, and it was fine, but I kept forgetting about them, not stirring very often. The upside was that when they were done, they were done, and could be washed and dried.
The top pot is actually a linen and tencel warp, and I will have to show you what it looks like now. It's Chinese Red, and it's absolutely stunning. No idea what to make of it yet, but oh, it will be lovely!
While they were stewing in their dye, I was outside painting two warps. One is 10/2 bamboo, and the other is 6/2. The 10/2 is so fine and soft, while the 6/2 is more coarse, but I know it also weaves up just fine.
The first warp was three shades of green, but it needed a spark, so I threw in some eggplant. I loved the way it looked! It was so vibrant! Notice the past tense in my sentences? The reveal will be in my next blog entry.
I also hand dyed some wefts, the ones for the ocean colors. It was fun, and a good way to use up the leftover dyes. I need more practice to make it work better. I don't like the too-busy way they come out sometimes, with a busy, multi-colored warp and a similar weft, so I kept each weft to two of the three colors, and only used one as a base and once as an accent.
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| weft |
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| weft |
I forgot to take a picture of the ocean colors until I'd wrapped it up, but don't worry! There will be a reveal, and it won't look like it did when it was wet, anyway.
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| Ocean colors I forgot to photograph! |
Successful or not, I had a lovely day, outside in the cool Spring sunshine, making yarn that no one else will ever have. I'm already imagining scarves and shawls in lovely, cool colors.
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