Blazing Cricket Sunset

Crazy title, I know... but it says it all.  This is my first woven project this summer on our sailboat on Lake Champlain... woven on the warp I wound and then dyed at the Blazing Shuttles workshop in early May on my little 15" Cricket rigid heddle loom. The colors remind me of some of the colorful sunsets we see while at dock in our boat.

Me and My Cricket

my Cricket

I haven't warped the loom from a warp chain before and it went quite well.  I had wound the warp from 4 different yarns at the same time - 100% cotton Anne's  Lace from Henry's Attic (a boucle), two strands of very very fine linen held together, left over cotton knitting yarn with bits of sparkle, and a pale green cotton/rayon mill end yarn that has been faded that I've had for years.  The overdye in Kathrin Weber's Blazing Shuttles workshop with fushia, blue and gold was gorgeous.  I had a bit of a blip when I spun the wet yarns and fibers I dyed in my washing machine to remove excess water... and the bag with the dyed tow linen opened and adhered to all the warps and yarns I'd dyed... which of course created a super tangled mess!  It was a wonderful project to sit and pick and pull all the tow linen I could from the yarns to try to make sense of it.  This warp was the least affected. I will tackle the others when I get back to Savannah in the Fall.

the tied warp bundles to shift the colors

the warp sequence

picking up every other yarn on the hole shed to create texture

I decided to do some shifting of the colors by tying three bundled knots in the warp behind the heddle as I wound it on.   It worked and was so easy to do!  Then as I warped I bunched some yarns by skipping a dent or a hole.  This caused the yarns to get more mixed up when I raised or lowered the heddles and the warp was more irregular... and Saori-like in its randomness.

SOME OF THE SAORI-LIKE WEAVING TECHNIQUES:

clasped weft

inlaid square

I gathered different yarns I had in reds through fuschias, purples, beiges, oranges, and pinks.  Some were handspun from cotton I bought from Sarah deRoo of Copper Corgi at the Fiber Frolic in April.  I used some silk I had spun on my dropspindle. Others were commercial yarns left over from other projects and a space dyed very fine silk yarn I bought a the Frayed Knot.  I was ready to play.  And what fun it was with the beautifully dyed colors emerging as I wound the warp forward on the loom!

The only problem about finishing is that now I dont have a gorgeously handdyed warp to play with.  I'll have to think about what to do next.  AND listen to what this gorgeous 4+ yards of 12" fabric tells me it wants to be. 

SOME DETAILS OF THE FINISHED FABRIC: