I woke up early this morning, meaning I get some quiet time before the day begins. I grabbed the chance to study the articles Bonnie sent me on doubleweave, and feel I understand it much better now. I don’t think I’ll fully understand it until I weave up samples (impatience, impatience, must assemble warping wheel and weave off remaining warp first) – but I do understand some of the theory now.
The fuchsia yarn, it turns out, is drying to a much lighter shade (sigh of relief) so I think I will be fine just using it as it is. So now it’s a matter of weaving off the current warp and winding the warp for the doubleweave samples. I will also need to dye some weft – I think I will do several batches. Black, navy blue, medium gray, light gray, white. Maybe some browns. I can also use some of the warp yarns as weft, which would be interesting as well. I plan to turn as many knobs as I can while weaving this project – using all those different colors and values will give me a better understanding of what happens when you combine different colors! I have read several books on color theory, but so far it’s all, well, theoretical.
Also, dyeing various shades of black will give me a better idea of color strength variation with various percentages of dye – so will teach me something about dyeing as well.
Of course, it will also use up lots of yarn. Good thing cotton is fairly cheap!
I think I will dye more yarn (and do more weaving) this afternoon. The nice thing about doing small quantities of yarn is that I can do it using quart jars in my canning kettle, and do many colors at once. Larger quantities I have to do in the canning kettle or in a bucket, and that takes longer.
And now, it’s almost time to go to the farmer’s market, where they will (hopefully) have dry-farmed tomatoes. These are grown with very little water so they are small but intensely flavorful/sweet. If I can find some I think I will make cream of tomato soup with fresh basil – one of my favorite dishes. It’s hard not to turn into a glutton in the summer – there are so many delicious things to eat!
You will love doubleweave. Once you begin actually weaving it, the theory kicks in and it all makes perfect sense. Then beware: your brain will start churning with all sorts of exciting ways to doubleweave, triple weave, quadweave! 🙂
ENJOY!
Jane