Showcasing Colour

I’m going to confess…..I’m an organizer! I feel most comfortable having everything in its place with few visual distractions; I like space around things so I can concentrate on each item. When I was planning my projects it seemed a good idea to pull out all the scarves Ngaire and I have for sale, have a good look at them and plan our new projects around them. Sales season cometh all too soon!

Generally my woven scarves have a warp of one colour and a contrasting weft, admittedly I’m a pattern person and I love to see the woven motifs clearly. Each scarf is beautiful by itself, but shown in close proximity to others, the colours can all blah out and you get a big eyeful of grey or beige or heaven forefend brown! Not what I want to achieve…So the game plan is to use solid or tone on tone warp and weft and weave foils for the scarves we have. These solid breaks would showcase the scarves around them as well as pull the eye toward the scarves ~ well that’s the plan anyway!Lace weaves seemed to be the best option for these solid or tone on tone scarves as the texture would provide interest that one colour patterned twill might not have. My new line of scarves is named for grape varieties (after all I do live in British Columbia’s biggest grape growing area), so this golden beauty is called Malbec. The weave structure is dropped tabby on eight shafts that I’ve turned and amended to weave vertically on ten shafts. I’ve woven the scarf using 2 tones of gold 2/8 tencel, one in the warp and the other in the weft. This weave structure has floats on one side that run vertically, in one tone of gold and horizontally on the other side in the second tone. Using the tone on tone gives amazing depth of colour. The foil for the unwoven areas is a 50/50 tabby, so the scarf has amazing structural integrity. In my enthusiasm to get going I forgot to change my reed, so wove this scarf at 28 epi…and it turned out stiff as a board off the loom. I must admit I was a tad worried.In the past I’ve always twisted my fringe before I wash the scarf, but for some reason I’ve found that my knots move around after washing. I’m sure it’s the miniscule differences in the take up while twisting. This has meant that I’ve had to fiddle with the fringes twice – not fun. This time I decided to lightly braid my fringes and wash the scarf, then twist the fringes when they were dry…..this really worked for me. I had no trouble undoing the loose braid when I hung the scarf to dry and twisting after washing was easy and the knots stayed where I put them! Thankfully Tencel is an extremely forgiving medium and after washing this scarf has beautiful drape and feel….whew!