Back to Weaving

Yesterday was spent sorting through a large collection of natural dyed handspun yarn which I acquired some years ago. I need a few scarves to offer at the next exhibition of Midlands Textile Forum and decided I could probably get 3 scarves out of what I had. The big problem was not the total weight of yarn available but the fact that I mostly had 30 to 50 gms of each colour but I wanted to have a striped warp and a self-coloured weft. I did have large quantities of a nice pale green from which I will get the weft for two scarves. The photo above shows the first scarf. I am putting a few stripes of darker green at each end of this first scarf.

The above photo shows the colours left after the warp was finished. I will add stripes to the pale green of the second scarf. But for the third one, I will use mostly a white yarn with the rather nice pink shown above.

It is a long time since I did anything like this. Threaded up on four shafts on the Voyager!! It is all quite fun and I may tie a second warp on this when the three scarves are completed. I also have one which came off the 12 shaft Meyer done with what was left of the Summer School warp. That has been finished but not washed yet.

The weft is partly the bamboo/cotton of the warp and partly some space-dyed fine wool. I rather like the false leno which Laura Thomas showed us at the Summer School.

I had a long telephone conversation with my sister yesterday. She worked in Africa for some time as an FCO doctor. I have since realised that, to me, the most interesting, and the most important bits of the African trip was visiting Kwasa village and going for a bushwalk with the Bushmen. I have always thought people were important and why the charities I support are for children.

And now I must go do some paperwork.