sweetgeorgia

Attraversiamo

Attraversiamo. So, apparently this means literally “to cross over”, as in “hey, let’s cross the street”-type usage. I learned this lovely new bit of Italian last night from the book by Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love, where she simply gushes about how much she loves this word. How beautiful it sounds. How delightful and Italian it is. It is her most favourite word in Italian.

This morning, I pass by the silk scarf currently on my loom. It is bathed in light. It actually seems like it’s emitting light… even in this soaking wet grey Vancouver weather. And I notice the beauty and profound effect of “crossing over”.

The yarn used here for the “crossing over” or the weft is bamboo yarn with several dips of indigo. It took me several attempts at first to find the best yarn to cross with this warp. The warp is varied and mixed up, with one side heavy with fat and chewy turquoise silk singles to the other side where several slim strands of osage and iron dyed silk peek out. Sprinkled throughout are the bumpy bits of silk boucle, bursting from the surface of the fresh woven fabric.

Initially for wefts, I had tried an ethereal, kid mohair laceweight yarn dyed in pale turquoise, but the core yarn disappeared into the warp stripes and all that was left was residual haze. Crossing it with something stronger like 20/2 silk only made it look and feel weft-heavy.

But this bamboo seems to fit perfectly. The warp is turquoise, warm blues, aqua greens, and even maize yellows. The indigo-dyed bamboo is still a warm blue, but less so than the warp. A cool blue, even. And so the colour shift that happens when you cross the two is the most appealing thing about weaving. It is the relationship between the two — seemingly disparate — colours that is magical. The best fitting weft will merge with the warp… not disappearing into it and not overwhelming it. But it will colour and shade the warp and produce something that makes the warp even more beautiful. The weft is subtle, complementary and supportive.

I’m pretty sure Gilbert didn’t have anything about fabric on her mind when she wrote about this. But the analogy seems so obvious to me: that the person you choose to cross over with should be, in overwhelmingly simply terms, a good weft. That this person should merge and blend with you in such a way as to create a more beautiful life.

Attraversiamo. Let’s cross over. There’s something better on the other side of the street.

Swimming in colour.

Dyeing small skeins of silk in natural or chemical dyes over the past few months has resulted in an incredible assortment of colours and textures that seem to complement each other. Leaving them on their own seems unnecessarily limiting, so the mixed warp is the way to go.

This past year at the Maiwa workshops, I took year 2 of Michele Wipplinger’s Colour Institute. The three-day workshop covered how to incorporate “light” into your work. Contrasting textures, lustruous textures, luminous effects, iridescent effects, or even the combination of colours in a certain way. These mixed warps are overall one colour, but have tiny proportions of (relatively) complementary colours to spark the mix. I’m trying to get away from the all monochromatic colour palettes and explore something just a bit more complex. But complex or not, I just like how these look.

Simple.

I lurve Friday weaving. The six-yard 18/2 silk and wool warp is on the loom and I’m weaving the first half in Dornick twill with a darker purple weft. The second half will be “crystal” twill (just a different treadling) and a magenta weft. Say “yay” for daylight in Vancouver.

We’ve only gone a few steps… but I think I’m in love.

Mixed up.

Destash. I’ve set myself a bit of a laughable goal in wanting to use up pretty much every last drop of my yarn stash. The aim is to not acquire any new yarn until I’m done with the current stash. Jen, this does not include the lovely yarns I picked from your stash… you are going to London and it’s just not practical for you to take all your yarns.*

I’m attempting to destash by breaking up bags of yarns that were originally destined for full-on sweaters, because, really… when will I have time to sit and knit two sleeves, two front pieces and a back? Instead, I wanted this big, chunky scarf … I didn’t realize, however, that it was going to weigh about 200 lbs.

Ingredients for the knit scarf:

• 2 x 50g of dark eggplant alpaca from La Droguerie, purchased in Tokyo
• 2 x 50g of Rowanspun 4-ply in Rumtoft
• 2 x 25g of Rowan Lurex Shimmer in Bronze
• 1 x 25g of Rowan Kid Silk Haze in Splendour
• 3 skeins of Habu Tsumugi Silk, purchased in Kichijoji
• 1 x 100g of 5/2 bombyx silk, handdyed in cochineal

I’m looking to make this scarf about 10 feet long if I can manage it…

And this is destashing by handweaving with mixed warps… I used up the Saje and Golden Siam silk yarns that I purchased in San Francisco about two years ago. Plus, I added two strands of 5/2 bombyx silk… one pale lavendar (from cochineal with no mordant) and one pale cool green (from osage overdyed lightly with natural indigo). The dark green warp thread is cashmere and nylon. The weft is 100% silk… slubby and raw… and completely purple. I feel like this scarf might have been fulled a bit too much (my washer and I are still getting acquainted) but it is now wonderfully soft and warm.

Today, the 6-yard silk/wool warp is going on the loom.

*Aww yes, my friend Jen (of South African yarn tourism fame) is moving to London TOMORROW and has started writing about her adventures already … here …

Handwoven Rug

I’ve been quite infatuated with Peter Collingwood for a while now. Maybe it’s that he left medicine to be a weaver. Maybe it’s that he wrote the bible on rug weaving. No idea. Or maybe it’s just that fiercely beating a weft into submission is pretty darn enjoyable.

This rag rug was woven on the 45″ Leclerc countermarche loom at Place des Arts. The warp is 132 ends of plain ol’ white cotton butcher string and the weft is old jeans ripped or cut into 1/2″ strips. Sometimes, I cut the jeans with sewing scissors… other times, I got tired and started ripping the cloth… and other times, I used a fancy Olfa rotary cutter. There were a couple different colours of denim and they all blended together and created a bit of a mottled result. I wove for about one yard and cut the rug off the loom, finishing the ends on a sewing machine.

It’s such a good feeling. Save your denim. Recycle something. Get a workout. All at the same time!

I think it took only about three short sessions of weaving at Place des Arts to weave this up. At times, I think the loud banging from the loom as each shot was whacked into place frightened the other students in the class. I heard someone whisper, “Felicia Lo. She can beat the snot out of you.”