Sweaty palms

Charming title, eh? I’ll get to that in a moment.

The huck silk warp is on the loom. I’ve found one sleying error (which was an easy fix) and everything else is looking OK. I had some trouble with the warp twisting and am a bit worried about how the tension will hold up, but not worried enough to feel the need to do something about it. (famous last words??)

I used 30 colours in the warp, in a variety of depths of shade. Going from right to left:

section 1 moves from pure violet to pure yellow;

section 2 moves from pure yellow to pure bordeaux;

section 3 goes through the “inner triangle” with varying proportions of all 3 dyes;

section 4 is the steps between bordeaux to violet without actually including the pure colours (since they’re already in the warp).

The weft plan is to go through the same sequence twice, with a few repeats but mostly different depths of shade. The end piece should have all 63 colours included.

The sweaty palms are both literal and metaphorical. Literal because it’s hot – I just checked a weather site and it’s currently 40.5 degrees celsius (104.9 F). I have a ceiling fan but no air-conditioning. The computer driving my loom is being a bit skittish with random reboots and I’m keeping to short bursts so as not to overheat the control box (or the controller – me!). The metaphorical sweat is nerves – this is the widest warp I’ve ever attempted and I’ve invested a fair bit of time in the dyeing and preparation; so far my throwing of the boat shuttle is just not doing the job so I’ve resorted to a stick shuttle – effective but not efficient or a good way forward. I can’t find the source, but I’m sure it was Syne Mitchell who wrote about learning outcomes being a weaver, not a piece of cloth – and after all the original question/concept was learning about colour interactions, not wanting a particular fabric. It also helps in my head if I call it “fear of learning” – much more scarey and unacceptable than “fear of failure”.

So the plan is one small step at a time, keep my cool, enjoy learning and improving.

Related posts:

colours and sample: https://fibresofbeing.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/first-things-first/

draft: https://fibresofbeing.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/progress-on-the-plan/