Finishing Up and Starting Again

The finishing up part of the blog is showing the final photos of the scarves that were woven last month.  The first is Mom’s denim blue silk scarf with white Tencel.  It caught someone's fancy and sold in just a couple of days.

Second is my pink silk scarf with chocolate, silver and cream silk stripes, it has dark purple eggplant Tencel as the weft.  It is a charming scarf and I love how that pattern looks like ruse buds.  For sale.

The third scarf is the dark pink scarf with three stripes of chocolate and cream silk stripes, it has dark red Pompeii Tencel as the weft.  There was a disaster when I washed the scarf, even though I used Dye Catchers, the chocolate coloured silk leached into the cream silk.  Now there are smears of dye all throughout the scarf and the cream stripes have turned light blue/grey, not good.  So it is mine.

The fourth scarf is Mom’s ink blue silk with teal Tencel.  Getting photos of the wonderful iridescence is hard but the scarf is still spectacular.  The wonderful curves of the pattern look like waves coming onto the beach at one of the local beaches here on Vancouver Island.  For Sale.

I have put together a new weaving draft for sale, I call it Coastal Mountains Twill Tea Towels for 8 shaft looms.  There is a PDF with the draft, project guide and further breakdowns of the threading, tie up, and treadling just in case the person buying the draft doesn’t have a weaving program.  Also included is a WIF, which is a universal weaving file that can be used with most weaving programs.   Etsy listing for Coastal Mountains Twill Tea Towels Weaving Pattern.  

This is a favourite draft that has been woven numerous times by both Mom and me.  Here are some of the variations that we have done over the years, here it is in an Easter Egg Plaid, here in Grey with Purple Stripes, here in Grey with Yellow Stripes, here in Grey and Red Stripes, here in Caribbean Blue Stripes and lastly here in bright stripes of cottolin, a Unicorn Party of colours.   

I'm thinking about my new project featuring these two skeins of very fine silk in a lovely spring green and blue.  The reason I'm still contemplating is that these threads are actually not much thicker than sewing thread.

The skeins were quite messy and it took hours to make them into cakes so that they will be ready to make into a warp.

There was a homemade tag on the skeins saying that they were 2/60 but looking at them next to a commercial 2/60 I think that they are closer to 2/120!  That is very fine, I was thinking of doing a scarf in Echo Weave with them but they are just too fine.  The sett would be 120 ends per inch and at 8 inches wide for a scarf that would be 960 ends!  I'm really worried that the scarf would be too thin and webby looking.  I think that I’ll be starting again to find a new project.  But if anybody has any tips on using super fine silk, please let me know!

Final garden photo is Arctic Bells Daffodils (Narcissus bulbocodium 'Arctic Bells').  They are a form of hoop skirt daffodil, they are a lovely pale lemony colour and very fragrant.