I took the shawl with me to Complex Weavers, and by working feverishly on it on the plane and this morning when I got up, I got it fully complete, fringed, and wet-finished by noon:

I’m VERY pleased with it, and will be wearing it tonight for the Complex Weavers Fashion Show.

Complex Weavers Seminars has been delightful so far – getting to meet a lot of the people I’ve been corresponding with for years!  The first seminar, Su Butler speaking on tied weaves, was fantastic, and has inspired me to try tied weaves next.  I’m eagerly looking forward to the others.

Eight or nine hours of obsessive weaving has produced this second “take”.  The photos, alas, do not do justice to the depth and saturation of the colors – they’re deep jewel shades that practically glow.  But here they are:

And here are the closeups:

I like this a LOT better.

For this variation, I eliminated both the striped background and the progression from 1/3 to 3/1 twills in the pattern squares.  Instead, the pattern squares are entirely 1/3 twills, 25% warp and 75% weft showing.  This was to maximize the visibility of the color-gradient wefts in the foreground.

I also decided to tone down the color changes in the background, so as not to compete with the foreground for attention.  So on the blue/purple side, I made the background a 2/2 twill (50% warp and 50% weft showing).  This allowed the blue warp to tone down the color changes a bit, while still leaving them quite visible. Because blue and fuchsia/purple are about equal strength, I “mixed” the colors in equal proportions.

On the gold/orange side, however, I made it a 3/1 twill (75% warp, 25% weft showing) so the gold warp would dominate.  Since yellow is such a weak color relative to red, I figured adding even a small amount of red would still shift the color.  And that is exactly what happened.  I think next time, though, I may try it with 2/2 twill (a 50-50 ratio) – I’d like to see even more reds in the background on the orange/yellow side.

Off to bed!  My flight to Albuquerque leaves at 2pm tomorrow and I haven’t even started packing yet.  Lots to do tomorrow!

I was so eager to see the finished shawl that I stayed home last night, skipping my guild meeting (three months in a row – what WILL they think of me??) and weaving like a maniac, then hemstitching the shawl, cutting it off, and….

TA-DAA!

And here are some closeups:

Now for my critique:

First, I think there’s too much going on in the shawl.  The horizontal striping distracts from the color changes in the background, and the switches from 1/3 to 3/1 twill masks in the squares effectively hide the smooth color changes in the pattern.  Having spent so long laboring to make those color changes smooth, I also want the overall effect to feature them prominently!  So that is too bad, and I will avoid it in the next shawl.

Second, the colors are too bright and too large scale.  I put it on me, and the bright colors, coupled with the sheer size of the shawl, were a bit overwhelming, especially 0n the orange side.  If I were to redo it, I would either make the blocks smaller, the shawl narrower and shorter, or tone down the colors.

Third, there are a number of technical issues (mostly skips) in the blue side, which is a pity, because that’s the side I like better!  Most of those are due to my early loom woes, though, and once I got the loom working correctly, there are very few skips.  I’ve also learned to spot them as they happen, so there are fewer towards the end.

Overall, I like this shawl, though I don’t think it will be one of my favorites.

So what next?

I think I’m going to weave this pattern again, but with solid color warp and weft, and see what that looks like.  For my third shawl on this warp (I put on enough for three shawls), I’m going to eliminate the color variation in the background and in the blocks, and just use the color gradient wefts.  I think it will look better that way.

Curiously enough, my reaction to the finished shawl is very similar to my reaction to the Photoshop simulation, even though I liked the sample better.  So perhaps Photoshop is better than I’d thought, for simulations anyway!

Off to cook some food!  I’ve been so busy in the weaving studio that I wound up eating hardboiled eggs for dinner.  Time to make some “real” food so I don’t starve to death during the next weaving madness.

I came home from work yesterday and started weaving like a madwoman – not sure what got into me!  At the end of two hours I had woven another 27″, and this morning I wove another 20″, bringing my total up to 66 inches.  The shawl will be about 84″ long (which is on the long side – my initial picks per inch calculation was off, so it’s longer than I had planned), so I have about 18″ to go.  I’m currently weaving at about 18″ per hour, so that’s only an hour’s weaving!  Piece of cake.

Here’s a photo of the last portion woven:

Here you can see the gradual progression from gold to orange, and the introduction of contrast.  It’s more interesting in real life, though – the colors shift and flow depending on the angle of view.  Nice iridescence – can’t wait to get it off the loom!

I could actually finish it this morning if not for FedEx.  Yes!  They are delivering my 21 kg of 30/2 silk today.  12 kg is for other people, leaving 9 kg (about 20 lbs) for myself.  But the loom is noisy, so I’ve quit weaving so I can hear the doorbell when it rings.  I don’t want to miss this package!!!

Now the question becomes, do I weave a second shawl or concentrate on finishing this one before Complex Weavers?  It depends mostly on how much I like this shawl once it’s off the loom.  If I find I don’t like the pattern much I’ll try to weave another.  I have four hours on Friday, almost all day Saturday, and the first half of Sunday to weave, so I’m pretty sure I can finish a second shawl in time.  If I like this shawl, though, I’ll focus on getting it finished before embarking on a new one.

Over the last few hours of weaving, I’ve started getting into the swing of weaving with two shuttles.  I’ve gone from pure incompetence (having to figure out laboriously which shuttle should pass through from which direction) to reasonable competence (being able to glance at the loom and tell which shuttle goes next).  I’ve reached the point where I rarely make mistakes.

I’ve also been working on smoothing out my hand movements.  At first I was clumsily grabbing the shuttle with one hand in order to hand it off to the other hand (inefficient and slow), now I’m using only one hand to pick up each shuttle.  Because I know the order and where to place each shuttle, I don’t have to slow down to figure anything out – catching the shuttle, placing it, picking up and throwing the next shuttle is virtually automatic.  Now I’m working on making my movements more circular, smoother, less bumpy.  This makes for better weaving rhythm, which is more comfortable, more efficient, and more Zen (to me anyway).

It’s also faster.  Over the course of the last several hours, I’ve reduced my time from about 3.6 seconds per pick to about 3 seconds per pick, including the time required to advance the warp, reset the temples, etc.  That’s a 17% decrease!  I’m definitely weaving more efficiently.

At any rate, I hope my yarn gets here soon.  I’m not very good at twiddling my thumbs.  🙂