Sunday, July 09, 2006

Painted warp

I suggested that our Spinners and Weavers Guild have a 'Something New' Challenge for the rest of the year - participants to try out a technique new to them, write a report for the newsletter, and everyone who participates goes into the draw at the end of the year for a voucher for a fibre or yarn supplier.

So, to provide a first example to the guild, I decided to try out painting a warp, something I've not done before. I wound the warp this morning - a fine white wool - and I ended up going into our guild rooms this afternoon to dye it as it's much better set up for laying out long warps, plus the microwave and dyeing equipment is all there.



I'm quite happy with the outcome, particularly given that my dye mixing was definitely not scientific! There's enough to make two scarves, each one going from red through purple and blue to green and then back out to red again. Now I just have to wait until it's dry, then put it on the loom, then decide what pattern and colours to use in the weft and do the weaving. That's all ;-) In all that spare time that I have...

1 comment:

Bronwyn Parry said...

Hope I get to meet your Mom as well as you when I finally get over the ditch!

I've only done a little natural dyeing - most of the local plants here give yellow or yellow-tinged shades of green and brown, and yellow is definitely not my colour! However, we do have some gums (eucalypts) on our place that are rumoured to give a reddish shade, so I'm planning to try them out at some stage. It's been too dry the past couple of years to have a dyepot over a fire outside, so I will have to try the sunshine method - when summer comes, as although we have sunshine in winter, there's not much heat in it.