Weaving in the dark [Scarf 21]

Okay, so I know I wasn't going to weave any scarves this week but I just couldn't help myself! Actually, come to think of it, I was helping myself, 'cause it dawned on me around noon that it would take a lot less effort for me to weave a scarf today than to do my Warp 5 review. A warp review requires getting out the photo gear, waiting until the light is Just Right, taking and editing a bunch of photos and then thinking of something to say about each scarf. Weaving a scarf, on the other hand, was a no brainer. All I had to do was pick a weft colour, sit down and weave. Considering that I had a pile of other stuff today, the no brainer option won. :)

I wanted to use a neutral tone in this last scarf on the warp and, after considering all the colours you see above, finally settled on the natural, unbleached cotton. I often don't really care for a light coloured weft on a warp with dark colours and especially stripes since I find it's too contrasty and that the weft overpowers the warp. I decided to try it anyway - for the first bit I was afraid I was proving the rule once again, but after a bit I decided that this one was a happy exception. I'm particularly interested to see how it looks once the fabric is wet finished, as I think the colours will smooth out even more. We shall see!

One other interesting thing about weaving this scarf: like the title says, I wove it in the dark. Sort of, anyway. You may recall that I mentioned after weaving the first scarf on this warp that my eyes didn't want to focus on it. That's been true for all four of the scarves now: every time I look at the warp, my eyes want to focus on a point farther away, or perhaps closer to. I've never had that experience with another warp, so it must be some trick of the colour combination. Maybe the green tint to the brown and the reddish orange are working their mad complimentary colour magic, like Obi-Wan Kenobi and his Jedi mind games: "These are not the warp threads you're looking for." It hasn't been a big problem, really - it's actually been rather conducive to zenning out while weaving. I must say, however, that it's rather unsettling to not be able to focus on the warp when I'm really trying to.

Then tonight, when I came back downstairs with Lulu so I could listen to WeaveCast while weaving, I didn't turn the main room lights on again. The three smaller lights I have attached to or near the loom were on, but the main overhead lights were not. That made the warp much less jumpy and I found I could look at it almost normally.

Here's Scarfa #21, the first scarf woven under my new rules of engagement:

Warp: 8/8 unmercerized cotton at 10 EPI
Weft: 4/8 unmercerized cotton

Not quite 20" in


Weaving in the dark. Hard to tell, perhaps, but the room is much darker than usual.


Scarfadone!

I really like the way you can see the scarf at three distances in this one. The top layer is between the beater and breast beam, the middle is between the breast beam and the knee beam, and way down in the bottom right corner is the fabric wound around the cloth beam.

One last quick note: I spent a fair bit of time today poking around the new WeaveZine site. Syne has integrated WeaveZine, WeaveCast, and her WeaveGeek blog into one site and has added lots of cool new stuff like forums. You should go check it out! If anyone has wandered here to Scarfaday via my post to the WeaveZine forums, hello and welcome!