Back to Weaving

I started the weekend by making up a silk scarf. The white scarf is in 90/2 silk and has warp sections which are alternately crammed and loose in the reed. This effect can be seen in the photo above. It was woven several years ago but never used. Last year I warped up the Megado with a 140/2 silk and wove a piece for the Association of Guilds exhibition which was not submitted. When I mounted it, it was not good enough. However I had some warp left and wove a band in overshot with several colours. So on Saturday, I applied the band to the scarf by hand and it looks fine. I decided not to machine the two together but to pin it up very securely and hand sew as tidily as I can - which is not perfect but is okay.

This is a shot of my samples on the Megado - donsu. I was trying out different colours, including a gold thread which does not show up the pattern well. Neither does the grey-blue show up. The other colours show up well. You can see towards the top where I have reversed the draft. I want the flowers on the green background of the lower section but right at the top is a reversed draft which I shall use from now on. Because this is a satin, weaving the right way round, means raising most of the shafts and this is inclined to partially raise the unwanted shafts so the fabric is not perfect, though the errors are difficult to see. Much looking at the underside with a mirror.

A close- up of the donsu. Now that I have woven a bit, I need to decide what I am going to do with this. Because there is a high ppi, it is slow work and I have about 10 yards of warp left. Why did I think I needed 10 yards of fabric which is 22 inches wide? I will use some up as samples for the Japanese Textile Study Group but that will not use much. The fabric is quite solid/stiff and would make a nice waistcoat. It is unsuitable as a jacket lining but suitable as a jacket fabric. But I don't need a silk donsu jacket. It took two hours yesterday to weave six inches. That did include hunts for different yarn colours. Even assuming I could weave at 6 inches per hour, it will take me 30 hours to weave the whole length. I had better start thinking now. Three yards of fabric would make a waistcoat. I wish I knew what the convergence yardage was for 2014. Does anyone know when this will be announced?

 

 

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