Markedly different [Scarf 33]

I wound a new warp to put on the loom today. In the chain it looks pretty similar to the last one...


...but on the warping mill you can see that it's actually quite a departure for me:


As you've probably noticed if you've been reading for a while, my usual MO is to pick some colours that I like together and wind them many at a time, which gives me the same mix of colours across the warp whether I thread them randomly or in stripes. Lately I've been thinking more and more about winding the colours in Proper Stripes^(tm) and today I finally decided to do it.

My inspiration for this particular warp was a bookmark I've had for a few years now; usually I lose these paper bookmarks in a heartbeat but I've kept this one all this time because every time I look at it, I think "Wow, I'd love to weave that some day." I also think, "Wow, look how they put in that skinny stripe of unexpected red (or orange, or yellow). I love that!"


I didn't go so far as to put in a stripe of red but I did put in a couple skinny stripes of colours that appear nowhere else in the warp. The warp is mostly 4/8 cotton but I also put in a couple narrow bands of boucle and in three spots I crammed four 2/8s into one dent just for kicks.


'Course, I'm kicking myself over that a little bit because the 2/8 isn't taking up at the same rate as the 4/8 so I'm going to have to cut & tie between each scarf to relieve the tension on those threads. Still, I'm glad I did it - I like the extra surface texture.

I think I did a pretty good job of capturing the feel of the bookmark's stripes. I wasn't so sure about the colours at first but, like yesterday's tan, they grew on me as I wove. I'm really anxious to see what it looks like once it's wet finished and worn, which is always the final test of success with a new type of design or colour scheme. If I like the result, I'll probably be doing lots more of these since it wasn't nearly as fiddly or time consuming to wind the warp as I feared. It's not quite the same instant gratification as my usual method but it's definitely workable!


Scarfa #33 done!