Dyed wefts, interesting possibilities

Here’s a couple photos of the wefts with their respective warps:

I’m a little dubious about the last one – I don’t know how much the maroon/blue will tone down the incandescent orange-gold – but I’m going to leave it alone until I’ve woven up a sample.  Overdyeing is tricky, and it may well be OK.  Only one way to find out: weave it up!

I had a good time looking through the “retiring” weaver’s yarns (she actually hadn’t woven anything in 10+ years and was getting ready to move, so was selling off her yarn collection).  I wound up with a cone of white stuff that I think is alpaca/wool (have to try dyeing some – burn test seems like animal fiber, but I’m not experienced enough to be able to detect small amounts of acrylic) , a few cones of silk that’s three strands wound together (might be interesting as weft), a largish cone of white 1/16 Nm slubby silk, a cone of white/metallic gold cotton, and (the real prize) about 1.5 lbs of what looks like 60/2 silk!  I’ve always wanted to try weaving with 60/2 silk and it looks like I finally get the chance. Happy, happy. 🙂

I also discovered a  potential source for naturally dyed reeled silk yarns from Laos!  One of my coworkers is working with some kind of NGO trying to help SE Asian weavers bring their products to a Western market – in a moment of inspiration I asked her if she thought she could get me some of the yarn they weave with.  She said yes!  I’m really excited about this – if it’s the same as the stuff I bought while traveling SE Asia, it’s gorgeous stuff – reeled silk, loosely twisted together, incredibly lustrous and soft.  I bought about two pounds of it while I was in Laos and have been hoarding it ever since – waiting until I had enough experience to do it justice.  However, if I have access to more, I may try weaving some up sooner.  Beautiful stuff.  Would make something really special.

B. and I are celebrating Valentine’s Day tomorrow, to avoid the crowds, so tonight I’m working on setting up the loom again.  I re-sleyed and tied on last night (as you can see in the photos), now I’m making lease sticks to go on the back of the loom to improve the shed.  If that doesn’t work, I’ll  try raising the back beam.  I don’t think I’ll get to weaving tonight, though – maybe on Saturday (tomorrow we’re celebrating Valentine’s Day).

Finally, it looks like I am closing on an offer for a contract-to-hire position at a company I really like.  I need to talk more with them tomorrow, will let you know how it goes.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!