Inspired by the Garden

HAPPY 152nd BIRTHDAY CANADA!

I am still getting through the warps that we hand painted last year.  I only have four more warps to go and this one is #17.  I like to make some notes for each warp; what it is, how many ends, the set and how long it is.  It is so easy to forget.

This warp is 2/6 raw silk that originally was that yucky raw silk brown colour.  When we were preparing the warps for dyeing we first put them into a Soda Ash solution which increases the pH, making the fiber more basic which opens up the fibers preparing them for the dye.  Surprisingly the raw silk leached all of the yucky brown colour leaving a silvery white; prefect for dyeing.  This warp was dyed moss green and plum purple leaving some areas silvery white.

The colour combination of this warp reminded me of a sedum (Sempervivum 'Icicle') that we have in the garden.  So I took that inspiration and ran with it.

I found a lovely rosette twill pattern; that resembles the flower-like sedums.  For the weft I lucked out and found a lovely warm rosy brown 2/6 silk.  The silk weft also has a wonderful shine that picks up the rosette pattern.

I have just started the second scarf on the same warp.  The inspiration is the same sedum but this time looking close at the individual silvery pointed leaves.

The weft is a 2/6 silver silk and the twill pattern highlights the leaf shape of the sedum.  The threading is the same for this scarf but I changed the tie up and the treadling.  I like changing the tie up when I can, to make each scarf different.

When I was tying up my treadles I found that one of my texsolv tie up cords had almost shredded apart.  It was hanging by a thin thread of texsolv, I am very lucky that it didn’t break through while I was weaving.

Next time you will see the finished scarves.

The final garden picture is a sad update of the oranges that have fallen off our hardy orange tree.  I am not really surprised because the tree was dug out last autumn, over wintered in a pot and planted in the spring.   Honestly, I was amazed that there were flowers this spring, let alone oranges on the tree!  Hopefully next year we will get our first orange.