A burst of inspiration

I finished resleying this morning and tied on again tonight.  I started by weaving a header in fine silk, then switched to a slightly thicker weft to weave up enough fabric to start the rotary temples going.

The pirn I happened to grab from the “extras” bin was a leftover painted-weft pirn from the Autumn Splendor sample, and it wove up beautifully, like this:

I was admiring the color shifts in the weft and thinking what a pity it was that I couldn’t do the painted warp trick on this warp, since the warp’s already on the loom.  Then it dawned on me…there’s no reason the warp has to be painted!  If I weave with either cotton or wool weft, I can differential-dye just as easily, by painting the silk with dyes that won’t “take” on the cotton (or wool).  I could make the silk a solid color or paint on splotches of color, entirely as I please.

And then I thought…what if I make the collar of the coat out of deep green leather, and paint the weft in a series of autumn colors, as in my last Autumn Splendor sample warp?

Here, as a reminder, is that last Autumn Splendor sample:

And here is the coat muslin:

I’m envisioning a deep green collar (the color of green maple leaves) against a gold/bronze background, transitioning into orange, red, purple, and brown as in the Autumn Splendor sample.  Warp would be dyed after weaving in shades of gold and bronze, so there is virtually no pattern visible at the top, and as the colors get progressively darker, the pattern stands out more.

The first thing that will be tricky is trying to unravel the knitted-blank weft.  I am quite confident that I can unravel a knitted-blank weft in 60/2 silk.  Trying to unravel a knitted blank in 40/2 cotton or 2/60 nm wool, on the other hand, is apt to be fraught with frustration, as the yarns are considerably more delicate than the corresponding size silk.  I may resort to using a thicker weft.  That wouldn’t be good for the drape (fabric drapes better if it is slightly warp-dominant) but with such a fine, supple fabric, it probably wouldn’t make a huge difference.

The second thing that will be tricky is the coat pattern…which requires fabric wider than I can weave.  Normally not a problem, as I can invisibly sew the panels together for most fabrics.  However, with painted-weft work, the edges won’t line up exactly, and the seam line will be visible.  We may have to re-modify the coat pattern to make it more “friendly” to my fabric width, or else add a princess seam somewhere in the garment.  I’m pretty sure Sharon will have ideas.

I won’t be able to get a grid of gold embroidery thread because the warp is 100% silk, but since I’m not doing devore, I can simply add a strand of gold embroidery thread to the weft, using a second shuttle, to get that lovely touch of glitter.

Yes!  Yes!  Yes!!!  I think this will work!