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| hand dyed warp |
May was a busy month for the Qualicum Weavers and Spinners. We celebrated our 25th anniversary, held our final business meeting before the summer break, attended Qualicum Beach Family Days and discussed painting yarn with Lucy Slykerman.
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| Detail from Lucy's shawl |
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| testing dye strength |
Lucy Slykerman is well known for her work with painted warps. She was in our area and generously agreed to meet with members of our group who have an interest in warp painting. We had a wonderful morning sharing experiences and learning from an expert.
Members of the guild brought in their samples of painted warps or finished products. We used the samples and the stories behind them to spark discussion about designs and techniques.
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| Marie's experience with old dye |
Marie brought us an example of what can happen when one uses old dye. She was not expecting the grey colouring in her scarf. The age of the dye was questionable ( more than a decade but less than a century). The lessons presented by this piece might be to date ingredients when you purchase them and test them before you use them. Lucy showed us a quick way to test a dye using paper towels.
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| Staggered warp bundles |
Several of the examples involved painting the warp or manipulating it when dressing the loom to get specific effects.
Mary brought an example of yardage that was made from painted warp bundles. The bundles were deliberately off set in order to create blocks of colour.
The blending of one colour into the next is inevitable if the dye liquid has an opportunity to move during curing. This suggests that you might want to separate colours that will turn muddy when they mix or alternatively you might use this property to create a gradual transition that creates intermediate colour. Sylvia and Linda brought examples of scarves that demonstrate colour blending.
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| plain weave scarf |
Pat isolated groups of warp threads and used a thickener to reduce dye movement in order to create stripes that change over the length of the warp.
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| pleated scarf |
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| painted stripes in warp |
Lucy showed us her design process and how she uses both painted and solid colour yarns to create stripe interest in her baby wraps. She finds that darker weft threads tend to make the painted warp stand out so she gets intense colour.
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| Lucy's design |
We left the session with painted warps waiting to go on the loom and/or new ideas for what to do with those colourless yarns sitting in our stash. You can expect to see some colourful new creations by the fall.
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| scarf waiting to be woven |
We would like to thank Lucy for giving us such a wonderful opportunity to learn from such an accomplished weaver. To learn more about her work and in particular her baby wraps, check out her website at
www.lucyslykerman.ca
