Not so, when I am ready to begin a new tapestry. To 'refill my palette' for a new tapestry, I first have to clean up the 'old palette,' a task I don't always do between paintings (though, hey look at that palette, maybe I should!). So I pull all my yarn bins off my shelves and tidy up, putting away all the yarns that I was using for the finished tapestry. Then I grab the maquette for the next tapestry and the work of filling my palette begins.
I go through each color bin and decide which colors will be needed for this piece. The ones I need are pulled out and put on my 'palette' - which is actually a rack thingee that I got at guild sale, which holds wound balls of yarn. Unwound skeins of colors I will use go on a portable rolling cart for when I get around to winding them into balls.
The palette for this "September" tapestry I will be weaving seems to have every warm color from my shelves in it! And it will have so much red, I'm just keeping the whole red bin out. Lovely! After the last piece, I am ready to weave the warmth of red again!
And p.s.: Thank all of you who left comments, sent emails, or just sympathized with me over the loss of our Possum. We miss him even more than we thought we would. Wooster can't figure out where he is hiding. As I think of myself as more of a 'dog person' I figured Possum would be the only cat I would ever want, but I miss having a cat surprise me with his presence, so who knows? Maybe another cat will show up and adopt us someday, as Possum did.
9 comments:
does it count if it's in a fedex box and responds to the name "otis"? ;)
Uh, no I don't think so. I like Otis a lot, but he needs you and Andy...and he loves the kids, too. He wouldn't like Wooster at all!
Thursday 10/16/08 7:57am
Now this on-line-student weaver is looking at the beautiful colors in your post....the diameter/size of these yarns does not seem to be skinny...so what is the size reed you will use and will you sley every dent..what size warp will you use--thin or thicker?...in other words will you have no trouble covering your warp and no little white spots appearing...on each of those balls of yarn will you use the fiber as it comes unrolled or will you separate into plies and use singles or doubles? thanks from Janet on the tree-color splashed East Coast
Janet, the weft yarns I use are not overly thin, but they are the finest weight splesau from Norsk Fjord Fiber (link on site). My sett is between 7-8 wpi, and I blend two yarns together... always. That is how I can get more color variety and gradation, and how I can make seemingly disparate colors work together. I don't separate these into plies. They are about the weight/size of a sport weight knitting yarn.
Oops. I meant the wpi is between 8-9 warps per inch. It's actually 8.5 wpi.
awww. he'd love to have a slave dog!
Thursday 10/16/08 2:43pm
okay, thanks for that reference to the store where the yarns are sold..I checked out their web site...I would assume I would order the "thin."....but what is your reed size...I'm on a large Fireside cantilever and my reed says "10." So on the website what number should I order for the warp cotton?...these small minutiae trouble me when I see little white thingeys (warp showing) while weaving.....and I never had trouble before last summer....I wonder if I changed the "size" of my cotton warp....I used to just go merrily along using all kinds of yarns for my weft.....before I was a "happy weaver" and since I last warped, I'm a troubled weaver....and when I asked you last summer, I followed all your advice and kept the warp thinner...but when I don't have my eye on it, the little white thingeys come back to get me....thanks from Janet again who understands the pet loss sadness...
Janet, you can use a finer warp yarn. But you could also use a wider sett- such as 6 or 8 warps per inch. If you are not doing highly detailed work, you could even use a sett of 5wpi, having a warp thread in every other reed dent. I do not have a reed on my loom, as it is a Shannock. I make my own 'harnesses', which is why they are 8.5 wpi. I would only weave at 10 wpi for something very detailed, and then I would probably not double the weft, but weave with single threads, which would give good detail, but take a long time! I will use that fine a sett for my small pieces. Also, make sure you are 'bubbling' the weft enough. At 10 wpi, you could use 2 strands of Paternayan (the needlepoint yarn that you have to split into strands). Hope this is helpful... if you are just learning, try a tapestry sett at 5 wpi.
Saturday 10/18/08 2:17pm
EUREEEEEKA for your last answering post!!!!!!!!!!! It was so simple.
Thanks from Janet in the cold Northeast
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