Spring and Fall Scarves

These two scarves have been on the Newcomb since last winter and I finally finished the second one this month. They took quite a long time because of the goose-eye inlay.  The other thing that took quite a while was selecting colors and patterns.  You would think that using random colors and treadling would go faster, but I had to consider each pick and how it fit with the rest of the cloth.  Much of the weft came from cotton sweaters that I had frogged over the past couple of years.  Most of the yarn is cotton, but I had a little raw silk that came on a second hand AVL end feed shuttle that I purchased last year.

The weft for one of the scarves uses blues, greens and yellows - all very spring like colors.  The second scarf is more muted with varying shades of browns and tans.  The sett is 16 epi, which is very loose for 8/2 cotton, so it required a soft touch with the beater.  The resulting cloth is light enough to wear through the summer.  The inspiration for these scarves comes from seeing photographs of the work of Ilse Acke, a handweaver in Bruges, and Susan Johnson of Avalanche Looms in Wisconsin.

Date Finished   April, 2014

Loom   Newcomb Studio

Weave Structure  Plain, twill

Reed   8, 16 epi

Warp     Fiber  cotton

              Count  8/2 and 8/4

              Color  natural and eggplant
Warp     Width in Reed  9"

              Ends  152

              Length 6 yds

Weft      Fiber  various cotton, silk

              

Beat                       50/50                     

Chenille scarves

Do you like my new model? He's not quite a mannequin, but he makes a good prop for scarves.  Last summer, Gary and I were visiting friends and left their house by way of the alley and found a mountain of trash from neighbors cleaning out their garage.  The owners of the house owned a department store that had been a fixture in town for decades.  They sold the real estate and closed the business and had lots of leftovers from the business, including 6 styrofoam heads used to display cowboy hats.  Other scores included rodeo posters from the 80's, old Christmas decorations that were made in Japan (pre-Chinese), and a big roll of store gift wrapping paper.

So back to the scarves, this winter I bought a number of sweaters at the Red Lodge Senior Center Thrift Shop.  One of the sweaters was a red chenille women's sweater which had flecks of blue, yellow and purple.  I thought that the yarn from this would make a great weft in a winter scarf.  The warp yarn was frogged from a cotton sweater of Gary's.  It is a heavy 4 ply cotton with virtually no twist.  What's better than free yarn?  The scarves are woven in an undulating twill, draft #204 from A Weaver's Handbook of 8 Shaft Patterns.

Date Finished         February, 2014

Loom                     Baby Wolf

Weave Structure     Undulating Twill

Reed                       8 epi

Warp     Fiber         Cotton

              Count        Unknown

              Color         Red  

              Mfr           

              Source Frogged      

Warp     Width in Reed   8 in

              Ends                 64        
              Length             6 yd warp for 2 scarves

Weft      Fiber        Rayon chenille

              Count       unknown

              Color       red

              Mfr

              Source     frogged

Size  6: x  72

Notes