This was a variation on the Ocean Sunset shawl, except that I made it with a knitted blank!
Knitted blanks are an interesting concept taught to me by Nancy Roberts of Machine Knitting to Dye For. You knit up a rectangular piece of fabric, dye it, and then unravel it and reuse the yarn. Using this technique you can get gradual color changes WITHOUT having to dye a zillion skeins, and you can get other effects as well (see the “Crazy Colors” shawl for an example). In this case, I dyed a single blank a gradual change from yellow to red and back again to see what would happen when I wove it up!
I am of mixed minds about this shawl. I don’t like the boldness of the lines near the bottom of the shawl, but I like the idea of the gradual color change. I think I may try this idea again, but with a simpler pattern.
The pattern for Ocean Sunset II.
The warp on the loom. Doesn't it look pretty?
This is the knitted blank. Notice how it shades gradually from gold to red.
It's hard to see in the photo, but the bobbins gradually change color from start to finish. Beautiful!
The completed shawl before wet-finishing.
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Fascinating! (I got here through the dyer’s list)
I worked on a dance piece based on “Alice in Wonderland” about 20 years ago, where the artist who made the unitards used a similar technique. He knit, dyed, raveled, and re-knit in a different scale, adding spandex filament, and made snakeskin and scales and all sorts of amazing things!
I wish I had more info on specifics…..
Gorgeous shading in your weaving. Keep it up!