Sunday, February 1, 2009

Lumpy Bumpy Texture Sampler

My favorite thing about this project was that it was a nice short warp with a ton of different yarns. I never had a chance to get bored!


It could be a useful reference for using some of my yarn in future projects.


One surprise was that the Lion Homespun yarn (the blue-green yarn in the corner) was fairly well-behaved as warp and weft, and it looks pretty good woven. The yarn snob in me confesses that I thought it would totally shred when I was using it. I was surprised that it behaved well. And even more surprised that I liked how it looked when woven.


I used linen singles for the first time. I really liked its stiff and plant-like nature. I also liked how it tried to make the other yarns behave and do its bidding. I had been afraid of linen before this experience (well, aside from my beloved cottolin). I'm glad my first experience with it went well.


This green color....I picked it up for a great price at the New Hampshire Weavers Guild yarn table. I have plans for it. But every time I look at it, I think "Ewwww - I don't like that color!" I've done a little color rehab by holding it up to other similar greens that I do like. But I still struggle with this one. I'm trying to like it.


Everything in this sample is plain weave. This piece with green wool as weft, and white mohair blend, and burgundy mohair boucle as warp looks more interesting than expected. Not sure I'll ever do anything with that tidbit of knowledge, but you never know!


This piece shows the yarns I yearn to make into a scarf. The wide knitting yarns were not well-behaved at all as warp. But the flax blend weft was really nice to work with. I definitely need to play with this combo more. I have my heart set on the knitting yarns being lengthwise stripes on the scarf - so I'd love to figure out a way to use them as warp somehow on some kind of loom.


Sometimes samples are nice....quick, messy, no worries, new ideas!!

4 comments:

sheilabythebeach said...

I had the same trouble with "not liking a certain color"; I gave away some nice 100% wool yarn(orange) and the new owner described the project he was going to make and I saw it in a whole different light! I too need color rehab!

Anonymous said...

Lovely sampler. It's so fun to have all those possibilities to mull over.
Judy

Gwen said...

Very cool! You really have some beautiful colors and fun textures going on in there! :)
I've only had my sampler off the loom since Sunday, and seeing your pictures already makes me miss having my loom warped and a piece in progress... ;)

Sharon said...

You're doing what we are always told to do, but I just don't seem to make me do it - Sample, sample, sample. I just my towels are samples of a sort.