On The Good Ship Lollipop

Remember the rainbow yarn I dyed in mason jars in my pressure canner?

 

Well, with my new addiction to the giant hounds tooth pattern, I decided to give this yarn a try.  I figured it would probably work out, but if it was an epic disaster, it at least has super softness on its side.... And if all else failed, I was pretty sure my dad would accept it as a gift and at least hide it sight unseen under his jacket on his cold morning walks.  So, I figured I had nothing to lose!

Up close, it's a little confusing of a pattern and doesn't stand out real well.

 But from a distance, it looks really cool!

This was raw wool that came from eastern Washington state.  We checked it in our suitcase when we flew back to Arizona and we ended up with an inspection that trip!  I'm sure that the drug dogs found it because it smells so animal-like, and then I'm sure the TSA wondered what the heck was wrong with this passenger!  And our luggage smelled like a farm animal for a little while after.  It was super dirty, even though I washed it many times.  Finally, in this last wash it came out white.  Really white!  Like snow white!  There's a few bits of grass that's stuck here and there, but the more I work with it, the more that falls out.

  And it's SOOO soft! 

It's harder to see the hounds tooth pattern in this scarf, but it's still very pretty in its own way and also so colorful!  But most of all, I love how soft it is.

So much fun!!!

Color wheel

 So I've been pondering my color choices lately for my latest weave and wondering why they look so good together.  I don't know a whole lot about color theory, BUT I have picked up a few things along the way.

I referenced my Color in Spinning book by Deb Menz because it has a great chapter called "Understanding Color Principles most useful to Spinners" and it's all about color combinations, what they are called, and how they work.  Even though this book is aimed at spinners, I feel in a general way it will help me as a weaver.

First, considering my color choices, I think the obvious things working together are the hues, or colors that appear close together on the color wheel.  The purple & blue work together in the same hue to make up the cool colors, likewise the orange, yellow, and pink all work together to make up the warm colors.  Deb Menz says this about warm & cool colors, "Warm and cool colors react different when combined in a design.  The warm colors appear to pop out and come forward and the cool colors seem to recede and stay in the background.  This is because saturated warm colors have high values than saturated cool colors.  To achieve a harmonious composition, it takes a larger portion of cool colors to balance the warm colors."  (pg 33)  And I can both totally see and feel that in my weaving, I tend to put it a lot more blues and purples, and just little bits of pink, orange, a yellow.  The pink kind of seems like it can transition between both the cool and warm colors, it blends and works well with both groups. 

It also happens that these two color families are opposites on the color wheel.  In fact, if you drew a line between all the colors, it would almost end up in a square shape.  That is why I would label these 5 colors as a tetrad harmony.  Deb Menz says this about tetrad harmonies, "A tetrad includes four hue families, two pairs of complements that form a rectangle on the twelve-hue color wheel.  The relationship of complements is being used, but in a slightly different context.  You are working with the complementary relationship and with the relationship between the paris of complements, basically a warm/cool relationship.  Yarns using this harmony are more complex than ones that employ only one relationship at a time."  (pg 42-43) This fits my colors perfectly: they are working as warm and cool but also within themselves, like the purple and blue look so good together, so does the orange, yellow, and pink.  This is so neat!

I found this color wheel that labeled all the secondary colors, or colors you can get when you mix the primary colors together.  Notice how I have 2 families of colors working together, but they are opposite each other.  That is why it works so well.  It kind of forms a square shape,

When I was warping my loom, I saw groups of my colors that looked really good together that I wanted to investigate further.  Like the orange, blue, and yellow were a great combination!  That is split complementary for sure, as well as the purple, blue, and orange.  Also, the pink, purple, and blue were pretty together, and a good analogous combination.  Another analogous combination were the yellow, orange, and pink, and that combination would make for some exciting dishtowels as well.  These colors will be fun to play with a little bit more when I'm done with this project!

I love colorful projects! 

Fun color tool:

http://colorschemedesigner.com/

Great color wheel for weavers:

http://colorwheelco.com/colortheory/Weavers%20Know%20Your%20Color%20Wheel.pdf



Can't wait to spin this up!!!

These colors are so inviting!

 The only problem is, I can't decide what I want to do with it!

Do I want 2-ply?  3-ply?  2-ply, one color and one white?  Self-striping yarn?  AHH!! 












 I guess I'll have to make more and then I can do it all!

All these shades of blues will be particularly interesting!

Corn

This is what I call beautiful yarn:  1000 yards of Handpainted 5/2 Egyptian mercerized cotton!  (Found here!)

Dominos #21

In the May/June 2005 Handwoven magazine there is a pattern called Overshot Made Easy for Pot Holders by Jean Koruson (page 30-33).  What I find fascinating is that she used 8/4 cotton carpet warp for both the warp and tabby and then worsted weight cotton knitting yarn for the pattern weft.  I have never thought of going this big with overshot before, usually I am trying to get it all balanced with the very small weights of yarns.  This is so exciting!

As you all know, I love Bertha Gray Hayes' patterns SO MUCH!!  So I decided to the Dominos pattern for my first pot holder warp.




I wanted super  bright colors!  I think these will do!






















And here is the sample so far:



There are a few threading errors on the right (not shown) that I need to either ignore or work out.  I'm thinking Jean Korus (who wrote the article) chose the single pattern repeat for her potholders for a reason.  I'm not getting enough pattern repeats to make it really that neat, but perhaps once I fix the threading error and actually wash it and take it off the loom I will like it a bit better.  I do like the effect of 8/4 and worsted weight knitting yarn!  I can think of all kinds of things this would be good for, like rugs.  In fact, it was just on Tuesday I received an email from Judy last week about her rug using these larger sized yarns.  I am so glad to get such good ideas to try out!

Inspirations

Since the P2P2 thing got started, I have really been noticing my world.  Usually I feel so oblivious to things at my own house that I almost don't see them anymore.  But when I was at my parent's house the other day, I noticed all kinds of things I wasn't looking at lately.  Here are some colors and textures from their house that have really stood out to me lately:

My dad's junkbots...

Handwoven gifts... 

 Wooden treasures...
















Cactus...  *ouch!  Don't touch!*

My mom's sewing stuff...

Freshly painted watercolors... 

Colorful quilts... 

 

Lots of books... 

And color galore...

Great inspirations!