I chose this lovely yellow called lemon drop and silver, very classic I thought and they followed very loose ‘rule’ for Turned Taqueté – different hues but close in value. I like it! 
The weft was to be 2/20 black Tencel. It was awful…the effect was dotty and didn’t do the lovely warp justice. So my quest began. 
Still in keeping with my original plan I tried 2/8 Tencel in charcoal. A lot softer looking than the stark black, but it made the silver a bit dull and lifeless. 
So then I thought, why not bring in something to compliment the yellow. This dark orange 2/8 rayon, just made everything look dirty. 
Now I’m getting a bit anxious, so thinking of clearly defined contrasts I tried this 2/8 rayon slub in blue. It made the silver look grey and the yellow look washed out. 
Thinking that maybe I needed something not so contrasting I tried this 2/8 mercerized cotton in celery. No, no no! Blah… 
My blood pressure is rising and I reach for the Orlec 2/8.5 is a bit heavy, but the range of colours I have in Orlec made me want to try. This lovely blue/green just made the whole scarf look too sweet – rather candy ish – not for me. 
Why not try….2/8.5 Orlec again, this time pink! I’m blind…..OMG…. it’s the Valley Girl! I’m trying to be colour brave, but this just scared me. 
I caved…..yup its purple 2/8 Tencel. I feel a little defeated, but damn it’s lovely! 
This is my first Turned Taqueté scarf. The purple made the silver appear lavender, but it’s a lovely and subtle. This shows 2 pattern repeats, each repeat is just under 5 inches in length. I am using 8 shafts and 10 treadles for this weave, that gives me 8 pattern treadles and 2 tie down treadles, as Taqueté is a two tied weave.I put on enough warp for two scarves, so now the hunt for my next weft begins. Today is a Procion MX dye day so I’m thinking maybe a painted weft?
These towels are in one of my favourite 8 shaft patterns and were supposed to be a quick weave to center myself. I’m sure you all have a weave structure or pattern that has rhythm and allows you to reaffirm good weaving habits, well, this is mine. Unfortunately I just couldn’t stay inside and weave….you know fruit to freeze, jam to make, tomatoes to pick! 
Today I got the towels washed and machine dried, now only hemming and entering them into my inventory is left. I keep my stock listed on an Excel spreadsheet which helps me price and track what sells and where it sells. 
I’ve started putting my next project on the loom today. I’m giving Turned Taqueté a go. I took a seminar from 
Last week I met some lovely folks; retired production weavers in Penticton when I drove up to buy some of their stash. Mr. Barr was very generous and gifted me with this amazing Leclerc bobbin winder. It’s huge! The ratio is amazing and it seems that only a few turns fill the pirns. My husband just tightened the drive band and it works a treat! 
On one side of the scarf the Shibori or pattern threads were gathered in small groups in an overhand knot. The scarf was compressed against the overhand knots as tightly as possible. I was able to get the scarf down to 1 ¼ inches. 
Dyeing was scary because I had no clear idea of what I was doing or what the finished product was going to look like. I chose to do an immersion bath with Procion MX dye in fuchsia. It took about an hour to dye, and I was worried that the scarf would just be hot pink and not show the diamonds I was planning on. It was really hard to wait for it to dry. OK, I peeked and it did nothing to alleviate my worries.
But after carefully cutting the knots and pulling the blue threads out, I pulled the scarf apart and . . . it is amazing! There is different saturation of the dye and it is really cool!
Instead of ironing the scarf flat I chose to block the scarf to 5 ½ inches and to allow texture. You can really see the variations now. You can also see the holes from the Shibori threads.
The scarf has a light and lovely drape. By blocking the scarf there is still a good amount of texture from the gathering process.
There are two very different sides to the scarf. One side is valleys and the other side is peaks of diamonds. The scarf is very touchable; everyone who sees it must touch!
I have enjoyed the entire process of making this scarf, the two shuttle weave, the gathering of the scarf, the nail biting (for me) dyeing process and the remarkable reveal of the scarf. I have enjoyed it so much, that before the scarf had dried I had dressed my loom with another one! The next one may be dyed in a different manner, maybe two different colours, one for each side.
The sample above is a natural coloured 2/20 Tencel/Cotton warp and the weft is a natural coloured 2/10 Cotton and the Shibori weft is blue 2/8 Orlec. The Shibori weft needs to be a very strong yarn as there is going to be lots of pressured applied to them when the threads are gathered. The background weft is woven as twill which makes a diamond pattern, the pattern weft or Shibori inlay half of the sample is also woven as twill. I tried two different placements for the Shibori wefts one set closely and one that is set two times further apart.
The sample was about 7 1/2 inches wide before I gathered the blue Shibori threads, a similar technique to smocking. The sample compressed down to 1 1/2 inches, with a lot of effort! For kitchen safe sampling I used apple cider vinegar to condition the piece and to make it take the dye; and two colours of Kool-Aid for dye. The sample was dipped half in orange and half in red. Then the sample was set out to dry before the blue threads could be taken out. It seemed to take a really long time to dry!
It was truly scary to cut the knots and pull the blue threads out to see what I had produced. And it is so cool! I love the little diamonds and the different saturation of the dyes. The sample should be pressed but I like the diamonds too much! But the scarf will have to be pressed because the variations will be more apparent. 
The above picture is the back side of the sample.
As a side note, we would like to thank everyone for their kind thoughts during this scary summer. The fires are still raging, and in BC we have about 150 new fires every day! We had a fire in the Provincial Park just 2 km away, scary.
This is the cloud of smoke at our house about 8pm (below), the wind is actually pushing the smoke away from us, and amazingly the sun was fuschia colored through the smoke! The fire is over a ridge and across a very large lake from us, but fearsome all the same. This fire should not get to us, but, we live less than a kilometer from a tinder dry Provincial Park which is 4200+ hectares in size and so we worry. 
We decided to drive to the shore of Okanagan Lake at about 10 pm; a 20 minute drive to see the fire. We could see the red clouds billowing up from some distance away.
On a much lighter note, I’ve decided to have some relaxing weaving and to put a few more tea towels into inventory. I chose my new favourite pattern 8 shaft basket weave and plain weave. I just can't seem to concentrate on anything lately. Worry will do that I guess.
I used 2/8 cotton in mango and lemon alternating for the body of the towel and added an orange panel on each selvedge. I am using the same orange for weft on 2 towels then will change to a different colour orange 2/22 cottolin for the rest of the towels. It’s rather odd but the orange crossing the yellows somehow has a pink cast…..really very pretty! The colour lifts my spirits and makes me think of brighter things.
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This scarf was finished this scarf with a cord edge in mineral green and then beaded lightly, only using beads every 4th bout, except in the middle where I had an odd number of bouts to work with. There is still that wonderful iridescence, I’m please to say. 
Echo #3 glows pink on one side and blue/green on the other. The pattern I chose to treadle reminds me of the shape of a Christmas ornament. Such a pretty scarf I think. 
A group of my friends had an informal dye day last week and I took along 60 ounces of 2/8 bone coloured Alpaca to dye. I followed the rules and had my damp fibre weighed and measured; but group pots can be so unpredictable so unfortunately, they came out very spotty. So with the generosity of my friend Louise, who gave me some of her dyes I had another dye day and was able to control the dye/fiber ratio much better and thankfully got these lovely skeins to show for it! One of the neatest ideas that came out of the dye day was the way we had lunch. Our hostess had each of us bring one sandwich, any type cut into four pieces and a piece of fruit that was cut into bite size pieces. The fruit went into a fruit salad base that she had prepared and was just amazing. The sandwiches were plated up and were so lovely – I think this is a great idea and it was wonderful to share. 
The fire on Terrace Mountain near me is finally 60% contained and the winds have been blowing the other way for a few days now. We still get the occasional whiff of smoke, but are much clearer today. 
I took these photos on July 26 at the worst of the smoke, the hills my neighborhood are pretty much hidden, usually they are very visible from the back deck, the hill is only about 1 km away! It was a very scary time and we had our important papers and photos ready to go at a moments notice. We’ve also had a major weather front pass through a few days ago with monsoon-like rain, hail the size of golf balls and winds that were amazing…..What a summer so far! We have constantly had 37+C days and nights that cool down to about 20+C. We have also had much more humidity than normal, so only the garden is enjoying it! I feel wilted most of the time!
What I find amazing is that my Zapatec tomato is doing wonderfully….we have already started eating other varieties. 
The Japanese cucumbers are soooooooo productive that all my friends and family are reaping the benefits too. I also grew an heirloom variety of French filet bean and picked 139 beans off one plant. So the summer to date has been eventful to say the least.
The idea for this project came from Mum as she is developing a workshop. One of the projects is 8 Harness Bead Leno and, well, who better than me to test out the project?!
The 8 Harness Bead Leno produces 2 blocks of Bead Leno, all Bead Leno and all basket weave. So there is more variation that can be done than what I’m showing. In the picture below is just two blocks of Bead Leno. While on the loom the smaller squares of Bead Leno are circular but after the scarf is washed the small squares relax and appear blockier which is a little sad as I liked the circular affect. 
The scarf was quickly woven up; I think that the longest time I spent on the scarf was the finishing. But it is so worth every moment, the beads add shine and are still light in keeping with the weight of the scarf.
The scarf has a lovely drape and shine that didn’t truly came through until the final pressing. This scarf is something special.
On a different note there are three forest fires in the area around us so we are inundated with smoke and ash. You may have heard about them on the news, two are the fires in West Kelowna and one is much closer to us in Fintry. We are about 50+ km away from the fires so we should be OK, but the smoke is horrid. Two of the fires are almost fully contained, thankfully as they are the ones that are burning close to homes, and only 3 were lost. The big fire called the Terrace Mountain fire, at 1500 hectares and growing, is the one that is mainly responsible for the smoke and ash. This photo was taken last night and the hills that you can’t see clearly are less than a km away. 
