The charteuse project

A few weeks ago I decided to weave a scarf to donate to a fund-raising project. So I picked out some soft chartreuse felted 2ply warp from my stash (some yarn I picked up at a studio sale with no particular purpose in mind), and some gold for warp, and red for accent.  Warped up my loom for a scarf and wove a sample.


 I knew the yarns would shrink at different rates, something weavers often take advantage of to add texture.  Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn't.  The visual texture of the sample looked nice, but the gold turned into something bristly. Not a scarf, then. 

So, maybe make the warp wider , and weave a table topper.  I chose a different color weft, a green more subtle and slightly darker than the chartreuse, to make the chartreuse a little more subdued.  When I washed a sample of the new wef, it seemed that it  might be a bit more drapey when washed, but still give a sense of texture.  I kept the red for accent, but decided to lay it in rather than weave it in.  So here goes:

I drew a simple cartoon drawing of what I wanted to aim for,  The cartoon is a general guide for composition but not a pattern. I would lay the pattern in by eye as I went, and expected that the end result would vary and be somewhat asymmetrical. As it turned out, it was less asymmetrical than I'd anticipated! 



The dreaded shrinking shed

As I am approaching the end of the piece, I notice that the shed is beginning to get smaller. And smaller....

So I decide to weave this end with a similar size double red line and seven inches of plain weave, same as the other, though the design elements are asymmetrical and not centered.  Keeping my fingers crossed I cut it from the loom:



I have hemstitched both ends to stabelize the weaving, which at this point,unwashed,  looks something like canvas.  I left about 7 or 8 inches for fringe.  The finished fringe will not be that long,  but I wanted plenty to work with.  In my sample and preliminary tests, the warp ends felted well together and I am hoping that it will be stable enough for me to cut off the knots and leave a trim 2.5 inch fringe sans knots.

 Each of the fringes is just two warps, twisted singly, then twisted the other way by hand and knotted.  I never thought I'd want one of those fringe-twister doo-hickeys. But on this project, one sure would come in handy!  I'm trying to making meditation out of it! 

When the fringe is finished (give me a few days), then comes the suspenseful (and unnerving) part: washing to shrink and full the yarns.  Will I come out with a fascinating minimalist texture, or a confused mass of yarn that won't lie down flat?  Stay tuned....

Mona the Magnificent

Off topic, but with some relevance, since Mona is my studio manager, as well as the household matriarch.

Yesterday evening was the 14th anniversary of the day I found Mona the Magnificent, in a wildlife refuge along the Yakima River in central Washington state. She was about 10 weeks old, and apparently the only survivor of a litter of kittens that had been dumped (why do people do this?).  I feel almost as if she called me: I was homebound after work, the sun was just below the hills, and for some reason, stopped to take pictures of the light along the edges of the hills and outcrops.  This is a painting I made from one of those photos:

Then I heard what at first I thought was a hawk- usually there are many, but they hadn't come home to roost yet-- the trees along the river were empty.  As I listened, the sound got closer, and for all the world sounded like a cat. 

Feeling a little foolish, I stood in the middle of the meadow and called "Here, kitty, kitty, here, kitty".  The sound stopped and I figured either that the wind was playing tricks with sound, or there was a cat and it was headed for the sound of my voice.  So, playing it safe, I kept calling. 

A few minutes later, a tail popped up out of the grass. It took nearly ten minutes of coaxing, but I finally managed to get this beautiful, skinny, cat into my jacket, where she clung as I drove, first to the pet store, and then home. 

The next day to the vet for shots and an examination.  A few months later, she traveled cross-country with me to New England, and has been my companion ever since.  By the time she was 6 months old, she weighed nine pounds. At one year she weighed 12 (ever been tackled by a 12 pound kitten?) and was still growing. 

Her weight as an adult has fluctuated between 18 and 22 pounds, depending on time of year, and there is a lot of hair on top of that.  She is truly magnificent: a Norwegian Forest Cat all the way through. 

Mona in her studio observation post yesterday:

Mona the Magnificent

(Not bad-looking for an old gal, eh?)