Monday 27 October 2014

Alpaca/Silk Scarves

The scarves mentioned in the last post have now been properly finished. One has huck lace diamonds in an allover pattern (top and left) and the other has a design with small flowers on a very open lace background (right). It's the first time I have used this draft and I'm not too keen on it.
Following this exercise I warped up for two more scarves, this time in the red alpaca/silk. Instead of an allover pattern I made them each with three narrow panels of lace, just one repeat of the draft, on a plain ground. One scarf has the same diamond pattern and the other has a design I worked out myself. Time will tell how it turns out.

Tuesday 7 October 2014

Small Stuff

September seems to have been full of non-weaving commitments but I have managed to do a couple of scarves and also my Cross Country samples for this year. They are not due till February but I am trying to get back to my habit of doing them early as I have been late for the last few years and I can do without the last minute rush.

The Topic for the group I am in this year is huck lace and as I had been doing samples for the linen workshop it seemed sensible to use the last warp for my CCW samples. This is in 16/2 linen and shows a motif in huck lace.
 On the end of the warp I made a couple of small earring hangers.
For my "own choice" samples I wanted to do a different style of huck lace, very fine with an allover pattern.  The finest thread I had was sewing cotton so used that at 40epi and used a three-thread huck instead of the usual 5 thread. Here is the result, showing the cotton warp and a polyester machine embroidery thread weft.
Threading took a while and sleying was hard to see, so a couple of ooops, but weaving was quite quick. I am pleased with the finished piece. I made a greeting card using some as an insert in a window and it was perfect.

Scarf photos are to come. I think they need an iron first.