December Break and Painted Warps

 

knitted shawl
 

Our guild took a break from our regular meetings in December.  For some that meant putting away the yarns and fleece temporarily while we don our aprons and do some Christmas baking.  But don't think we were totally distracted by the holiday season.





Earlier in November a group had explored warp painting using cold reactive dyes.  As a result there were painted warps just waiting to be woven.  I've included some photos of the dyed warps.  The intensity of the colour varied with the amount of dye and with the type of fiber that was used.  Some of the cotton and cotton-mix warps took on soft subtle colourations while other fibers gave quite brilliant results.

A painted warp is to a weaver what a dyed fleece is to a spinner.  It is full of possibilities.  It is also a tease.  It causes your imagination to wander, creeps into your idle thoughts and constantly lures you into the studio to check on it.  You begin to play with the possibilities instead of baking Christmas cake (no one but you will eat it anyway).  You imagine how the choice of weft will work with the colours of the warp when you ought to be wrapping presents.  You start designing scarves but of course you don't intend to set up the loom until after the house has been cleaned and decorated.  Sure!

So, some of us just could not wait.  I'll bet they are the ones who open their presents on Christmas eve too.  Above are the scarves they produced from those painted warps.