I painted the warp yesterday. Here it is:
In the top section, I applied a different color every 2″; some of the colors bled into each other, which is why there is almost no turquoise and almost no gold.
In the second section, also a different color every 2″, but I diluted the dye by 50%. The result is a more intense chroma (“brighter”) color and also a slight lightening of the mid-range colors.
In the third section, the dye is also diluted but the sections are 4″ long (there is now noticeably more gold).
I painted all the sections at once, so they would line up perfectly if I chose to go that route, and so the repeats would be regular. I have not yet decided how to stagger the sections. Here are two possibilities: regular and semi-random:
Of these I like the semi-random better. The first one is visually confusing as the eye staggers back and forth between the lines of turquoise and gold; the second one spreads out the dots of lighter-value color, so the eye flits back and forth between them, taking in the other colors as it goes.
Note that the semi-random is not actually random; in fact, it is very carefully arranged so the colors do NOT line up with each other (rather like a satin draft). I don’t want the colors “pooling” into a single larger section; I want the mix of colors to be consistent along the entire length of the fabric. This is because garment design is much simpler if you don’t have a huge, unexpected blob of some random color (especially yellow) to contend with. This is why I carefully lined the warps up and painted them together, so I could avoid that spacing.
This particular semi-random has a diagonal running down it (follow the turquoise sections to see), which I would probably eliminate when actually warping up the sample.
What now? Well, I need to weave it up. I have thought about how best to handle warping for this sample, and think that it’s probably best not to beam on the warp at all, but to throw it in chains off the back of the loom. Or, more accurately, to put it through a raddle and over the top of the trapeze.
Doing it this way will allow me to try different arrangements of the warp chains “on the fly”. Between samples, I can pull one or more sections forward until they line up as I want, and because the warp chains are independently weighted, it won’t affect the other warp chains. If I beam onto the back beam, I’m committed to a single arrangement of warp chains for the entire duration of the piece. So hanging off a trapeze will be better for my sampling.
First, however, I need to finish the qiviut scarf! It is on the loom with about 8″ woven. Mike is napping right now, but as soon as he gets up, I’m going to start weaving again. I’m hoping to finish it this afternoon, so I can start getting the painted warp onto the loom!
