Colors, colors

I finished the first sample panel:

My conclusions:

• I do need to mingle the bouts near the edges, as some striping is evident where the bouts got out of sync.  This is most obvious in the left-hand side of the yellow section, but is also visible in the lower right of the red section.  It’s much more obvious in person.
• I need to fix some tension issues.  The warp was much looser on the side bouts than in the center, resulting in much more take-up – about 4″ over the first 24″ – which meant the bouts got out of sync.  I have some ideas of what is wrong and will take steps to fix it in the next set of samples.
• I need to make the transitions between colors more gradual in the knitted blank.  There’s some pretty pronounced striping where the color changes happened too fast.
• I’m not sure I like the effect of switching to the silk.  The fabric is heavier (at 7000 ypp, it’s nearly 20% heavier than the tencel) and as a result, does not drape as well.  Shorter floats may contribute to the effect.
• And – and this is the kicker – I don’t like the colors.  They’re too bright; they make me think of summer flowers, not autumn leaves.  Compare it to the original sample in tencel:

At this point I am not quite sure what to do next.  Do I continue on in silk, or switch back to tencel?  Do I try a sample in 60/2 silk (for a lighter fabric), using the old color set?  I am baffled by the options.  I am going to take a day or two to meditate on this, and meanwhile work on my Handwoven article.  But I have the feeling I will go back to the tencel, and weave (yet another) sample, in the original colors, this time at full width.