Stripes and Squares Scarf

On this pair of scarves I am weaving specifically to sell on Etsy, so having a variety of scarf styles is very important to the look of the shop. Periodically I have a look at the overall appearance of the pages and try and spot any colour or style voids. Right now I seem to have a need for black and for stripes.

With that in mind I pulled a 2/8 tencel warp that has stripes in the following sequence 8 black, 2 slate grey, 2 blueberry, 4 silver, 2 white, 3 lemon drop and then the reverse. When I move into the next stripe I don’t double the number of black ends. The scarf has 5 stripes in total for a total of 163 ends which ends up as 6.8 inches wide.

I think it looks really neat over the back beam!

The weave structure is modified twill with some of the ends duplicated in the pattern.

Next to decide on the weft colour, after trying some of my other options; slate, black, navy and white….I chose this lovely grayed lavender. My goal was to make the first scarf fairly light coloured and to not hide any of the colours in the warp.

I have woven this pattern before with a different treadling and colour pallet. I found that if I wove long runs treadled 1-2-3-4 it produced stunning hills and valleys that gave an optical illusion but came with a price. Even after extensive wet finishing the weft threads tended to slip on the warp threads due to the smoothness of the tencel!

Needless to say, the scarf couldn’t be sold and I’m thankful for that because it is my very favourite to wear, warts and all it has a wonderful drape.

What I did discover is that if I treadled it in short runs the warp/weft was very stable, so here is a close up!

Back To The Loom

Last week we had a short trip to the Okanagan Valley to visit with my brother who is in the middle of Chemotherapy, so there was no time for weaving. I did pull a new two scarf warp and warped the loom, but  I’ll save that for next time.

I finished the fringes on the ‘Rhubarb’ scarf as soon as I came home and I can’t believe how much I love this colour pallet. The browns were lightened up by the red, lime and yellow and the whole scarf is a fiesta of fire! I’m definitely filing this colour combination away to work with again.

The Crackle weave pattern is so supple; the drape of this scarf is magical.

Since the Okanagan Valley is noted for it’s orchards I didn’t return home empty handed. I bought a flat of peaches, a flat of apricots and half a flat of lapin cherries. We immediately canned the peaches, made two batches of apricot jam and ate cherries like there was no tomorrow!

Just to fill up our spare time we went raspberry picking the day after our return, the berries were huge and don't they look pretty? We made two batches of jam and have these lovely berries ready to freeze. The blueberries were just starting to ripen, so these are just for eating with breakfast.

The same day, the two dozen French Filet bean plants that we threw into the garden in May decided that they were ready. This is what we didn’t give to our friends and neighbours ~ so lovely, and already blanched and ready to be put in the freezer. We have since done two more batches of about the same size and I swear my neighbours are hiding when we come with our hands full! I sort them into sizes and freeze the smallest ones whole for quick sautéing in the winter. The medium sized ones are cut in half and packaged ready for Greek bean and tomato casserole and the wonky curled up ones and the largest are cut up and frozen ready for soup. I love to be organized!

We stayed with my brother who lives on Predator Ridge Golf Course in Vernon while we were in the Okanagan,and we woke up on Sunday morning to these wee fellas just steps off the patio ~ their mother had stashed them in the shade while she foraged. They were there snoozing in the cool dirt for most of the day. Gotta love it!