In the last post I mentioned that the hand painted 2/22 silk warp that I had picked for my latest project looked like autumn leaves with its splashes of red, orange, plum, brown and moss. So I went with a tried and true pattern, a 10 shaft network twill that I think looks like leaves. It can be difficult to pick a weft colour, I like to try a lot before deciding. First lot of weft choices are 2/8 Tencel, in scarlet, moss and spice. I wanted to pick colours in the warp so I could highlight the colours of the warp but, nope, nothing worked, it all kind of blended into the warp.
Next weft choices are purple Tencel in amethyst, blue/purple and eggplant. The eggplant is a possibility as it tones down the orange but the other colours in the warp can be seen.
The last weft choices are gold Tencel in straw, Havana (bronze), gold, taupe and old gold. I like the two gold colours. But I’m finding the sett of the warp to be too far apart at 24 epi, especially since the warp has been washed once already in the dyeing process.
I changed the reed to a 14 dent so now the epi is 28 and I’m much happier. I also retested the short list of weft colours, gold, eggplant and straw.
The winner is eggplant! And now you can see the leaf pattern in the network twill.
After three repeats of the pattern I’m getting some strange looping with the weft on the left hand side on the scarf.
I think that the looping is caused by one of the shafts, in the photo you can see that one of the shafts is rising higher than the others.
I lowered the tie on texsolv loops on the treadles that corresponded with the shaft that was too high. I also added four threads of eggplant Tencel to each edge of the scarf to make a border to also help with the looping.
The loops have disappeared and I think that the eggplant makes for a nice frame for the scarf.
Final Garden Photo this week I thought it was going to be daffodils blooming but we got one last snow storm.
