Feelin' Groovy

And, here she is! My painted silk warp, the very one I've been yearning to finally harness onto the loom and she (for certainly this warp is too pretty to be a boy)  is, at last, settled in and ready to be woven! I threaded in three long scarves worth of hand-painted silk! (Oh how that painting process took forever).

The previous project hung around for a bit too long. But, I'm actually quite pleased with the 12 shadow woven cotton towels that I had to buckle down and weave off  in order to free up my lovely cherry wood floor loom, old "Betsy", old "Cinnamon Sticks", (not sure of a name yet) in order to move on with my silk project.

Moving on... here's that hand painted silk warp (that was shown above) interfacing with the snow white silk weft (that is shown below) creating an "undulation". Wow, that certainly is pretty groovy.

Throwing the shuttle a few hundred times and I'm starting to feel inspired!

Do you see the wefty-wavy-gravy playing with my hand painted color changes?

How about now?

Can you see it now?

I think I was meant to paint and weave pure silk only. (This could be a problem as it is intensely expensive and I do have a great abundance of cotton at my disposal just at the moment.) What is the Treadler to do?

Keep on groovin' I guess.

Death Warp

I have hundreds of pairs of knitting needles. Consequently,  I have zillions of unfinished knitting projects. But, there is room for only one 8 harness floor loom in my house so, there can be only one unfinished weaving project at a time threaded throughout this contraption and residing therein...and gumming  up the whole works until it is woven off and...o.k., o.k.  THIS IS A GOOD THING.

I realize and understand that if every unfinished knitting project I had were to take up 8 square feet of space in my home I would have to sleep in another country. While I'm new to this weaving thing I can already say it will make you finish a project! You don't start a new one until the old one is off that loom.

And yet...

I just measured out 7 yards of lustrous 20/2 silk warp threads at 30 ends per inch to make three  9.5 inch scarves. Then I painted that warp (after securing "the cross" and tied off the odds and the ends and then I took it off the warping board and soaked it and wrung it out and laid it out...)
I painted my silk warp in pretty, pretty colors! I wanted to recreate the colors of the northern lights as I like to think of them...

Isn't it lustrous? And, isn't it sad how it just hangs around with nowhere to go? Alas, that's because a fine, old, cotton, shadow weave project is still on the loom with a good 4 whole tea-towels to weave off yet before my precious  honkin' ginormous cherry wooded loom monster beauty is free to take on the silky warp that is all dressed up with no place to go.

I see what is going on. I have to grow up now. The Treadler has to finish what she starts before she can start the new thing she wants to get underway. I HATE THIS!