Twelve Shaft Painted Silk Scarf

I have also put on one of the newly dyed silk warps onto the loom.  This warp is full of colour, moss green, plum purple, turquoise, royal blue and purple.  I’m not sure what I was thinking with this colourway but it is exciting! 

Picking out a weft colour proved to be quite difficult, I want a colour that highlights everything going on in the warp but doesn’t overpower.  I tried iris, amethyst, olive, navy and a denim blue all in Tencel.  The dark blues and purples seem to work the best. 

But I still wasn’t sure so for the second weft auditions I tried eggplant, navy, dark teal and amethyst.  I worried that the purples would fight against the plum in the warp so I went with the navy blue for the weft of the scarf.

For the pattern I went with a tried and true pattern, a 6 shaft crackle that has been used successfully with several painted warps before.  But this time the pattern and the weft seemed to hide the lovely painted warp.

So I unwove that woven four inches, unpicked the hem stitching, pulled the warp out of the reed then I remember that I should put the lease sticks back in.  So I found a sort of cross in the threading put the lease sticks in and pulled out the threading.  

I picked another pattern, this time a 12 shaft twill with lovely spiky diamonds.  I am weaving with the weft dominate side up but you can still see the streaks of colour moving through the warp.  It is a relief to find a pattern that is going to show off the warp.  It is a complicated treadling so it is weaving up slowly.

Final photos are from a botany walk at Miracle Beach Provincial Park.  The leaves of the big leaf maple are starting to turn colour but some are starting to drop leaves early due to drought stress.

There are several large fires burning in the mountains above us so there was a smoky haze combined with the sunlight piercing the tree canopy made for some spectacular photos.