Variegated Again!

You’d think that we’d have had enough of variegated warps by now, but, no, no we haven’t.

We had a planned dye day back in 2010 for my Colour Study Group; at the time I had just acquired a vast amount of Ecru mercerized cotton from another Weaver’s de-stash. So when the two came together, the variegated dyeing just spontaneously happened! These cotton yarns have kicked about for almost two years and I was determined to use them. Thankfully, this wine cotton is the last of the batch that I wove!

This is both scarves together before washing ~ really, really different! The very nature of variegated yarn makes it hard for a pattern weaver like me to use. If you use it as weft, it may muddy the pattern to the point that you don’t see it. If you use it as warp in a complex weave structure the same result may occur. To my mind the best use of variegated yarn is in the warp with a very simple weave structure.

This is a 6 shaft, two block canvas weave pattern and for the first scarf I used 2/8 Tencel in Grey Mauve and treadled the pattern blocks about 3 inches long, alternating the blocks.

For the second scarf ~ well I went the the 2012 Island Retreat with my pal Susan at Thrums and my lovely daughter Ngaire wove this scarf off using 2/20 raw silk in Raspberry. The scarf above has been wet finished, but not ironed.....I have it sitting in a big pile on McSteamy(my steam press) waiting......

Ngaire used an all over pattern and created a highly textured scarf. The weft choice made all the difference to this scarf; it masks the warp colour and lightens the colour over all.

These scarves are very, very different; both are lovely in their own right and will be perfect for that casual look with a jean jacket or cotton blouse.