rainbow striped warp, more yarn, dyeing

Just finished dyeing the yarns for my latest project, which will be a rainbow striped shawl in a subdued rainbow warp (think “natural colors” rainbow rather than bright screaming colors) woven with indigo weft.  This is done in a commercial silk and silk/wool yarn (Henry’s Attic Petite Cascade and Jaggerspun Zephyr).  This will be an interesting project since it involves two things I have rarely (if ever) done before:

(1) alternate colors in warp threading (one red, one orange, one red, one orange, etc.)

(2) warp front to back, which I haven’t generally done – my method is back to front usually.  However, with the amount of striping in this warp, F2B makes more sense (I think) than back-to-front.

So it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

I have also bought a huge lot of yarn that has replenished (and more!) my yarn supply.  I now have the following on hand:

• 5 lbs 10/2 cotton
• 3 lbs 8/2 tencel, with ~1lb more on the way
• 8 lbs 50/3 silk for use as fine warp and/or weft
• 4 lbs fine cashmere/silk, ditto
• 4 lbs fine alpaca yarn
• 3 lbs superfine mohair yarn
• 10 lbs rayon chenille
• 5 lbs medium weight linen thread

I think that should be more than enough for awhile.  I’m closing up my yarn purchase “window” and will be buying no more yarn for awhile.

I am now winding a rayon chenille warp for handpainting, and will wind another tencel warp if I have the time before my friend’s tie-dye party on Saturday.  I have received the 210 skeins of white embroidery floss and the Cibacron F dyes and will start another set of dye samples over the weekend, time allowing.  I will be winding the warp for my rainbow striped project, and I have just started beading the tiger eye shawl (the tiger striped beads arrived a few days ago, hooray!).

All this is a lot of projects going on at once, and I’m feeling kind of unsettled about having so much going at once.  I’ve gotten used to working on only one project at a time, since the loom can only accommodate one project at a time, and five at once is a bit much.  Especially since my startup is going to go into “insane mode” fairly shortly, and stay that way for awhile. I’m not sure how much weaving time I’ll be able to get in.

Oh well.  I’m sure I’ll figure it out somehow.