I finished weaving and wet-finished the samples this morning. Here they are:
I’m not especially happy with the quality of the photo, but it was very difficult to get the pattern to show up clearly. In white on white, it’s very subtle and appears more in a flash of movement or a fold of a drape – pretty, but ephemeral.
The bottom shows the 120/2 silk warp and weft, at 90 epi; the middle one, 60/2 silk warp and weft, at 72 epi; the top one, 60/2 silk warp and 140/2 silk weft, at 72 epi.
I still like the 120/2 silk warp and weft best, of course, but let’s not go there. 🙂
Of the 60/2 silk warp samples, visually there isn’t that much difference between them. But the drape is SO much nicer with the 140/2 silk that I am going to use the 140/2 silk as weft…though I may use the 120/2 silk I recently purchased instead since it’s a blue-white rather than ecru, which I hope will show up the pattern a trifle more clearly against the off-white warp.
So now my decisions have been made, and I will start work in earnest. Today I plan to weave up the remaining sample warp – no sense in wasting 2 yards of leftover warp! – and tomorrow I will start winding the warp for the production run. Because of the problems I’ve had earlier with long warps, I’m going to do the warp in two shorter lengths of 12 yards each. The time sacrifice to set up the loom twice is worth it, if it makes the weaving easier.
