Spent all day Sunday tediously sleying the reed, weaving a header, and correcting yet MORE threading errors. I am not happy with this loom. I think I would be quicker and more accurate threading without the assistance of the compudobby, and that’s a pretty sad thing to say about a computerized loom. It’s too bad I won’t be able to afford an upgrade for awhile.
At any rate, I have been weaving sample after sample with various color wefts and several different patterns, attempting to get a “feel” for how the browns in the warp stripes interact with the weft colors. I’m weaving about 2″ of each color, enough to make a bookmark from; I’ll probably cut up the leftover samples after wet-finishing and use them as Xmas gifts this year, if I have the time.
Tonight, I plan to dye some more yarn samples, this time focusing on specific colors that I think will work well with the brown and tan warp. Burnt orange, a warm reddish brown, dark-brown-almost-black, harvest gold. Black I’ve already tried – it produces a nice effect, almost like wood grain – but a little dark for what I’m thinking. I’ve also tried bright red, which is a little too garish, and yellow, which is almost right but needs to be a little darker. More stuff to explore! Fortunately this doesn’t need to be done in the imminent future, which means I have time to play with colors.
I have also heard back from a couple of other recruiters and am scheduled for a phone screen tomorrow. So the job search seems to be picking back up again – hopefully more so at the start of the New Year.