Thundercloud scarf

Kerstin and I both bought some fibre at Stitches 2010 from Redfish Dyeworks. If you ever saw her stand at Stitches you would certainly remember it for it's profusion of intense colours.



I chose this 50/50 mix of tussah silk and baby camel in a colour that reminded me of thunderclouds - although the dyer thought it was more like the inside of an abalone shell. Either way I loved the subtle mix of dark and vivid fibres.

I eventually spun it into a fingering weight 2-ply yarn. I warped my loom with a Habu yarn 20/3 bamboo in a deep purple. (Colour 3) and used my handspun as the weft. I am really pleased with how the colours are preserved both in the yarn and the woven fabric.



Now this is really a cautionally tale in weaving: I had some difficulty warping with the Habu yarn; it's very fine and slippery; but I did get the warp on and thought it was OK after some adjustments. When weaving I seemed to have difficulty maintaining an even tension across the warp. The truth became apparent when I cut off the finished item:



A lot of the bend in the scarf I was able to massage out before I tied off the fringe and blocked the scarf. It's certainly not noticeable that the scarf is not straight - but it's an excellent example of how poor warping can have a bad effect on your weaving!