Weaving Extremes

I'm still weaving, in case you wondered. I finished this last week. It's a plain piece; any complexity in it, is in the warping. The weaving itself was straightforward. This was an attempt (as I said before) to get the stripes of the warp to stand out, and get the dominating weft to back off and let the warping shine.

And I think it worked! It's the right size for a shawl.

pardon the speckles from the antique mirror

Now I've moved on from that easy, predictable, tame piece, to something more crazy. I had this idea to do a weaving that would represent sunrise and sunset -- contrasting wedges of gold and deep blue.

I chose a wide array of dark/blue/gray yarns ...

... and golden tones and textures for sunrise.

I'm keeping both base colors loaded on my shuttle.

Because I wanted the weft to be quite bold in its statement, I chose the most subdued warp color, just pale blue. It fades away under both the golds and the deep blues.

I'm not sure yet what I think of this piece. I was quite pleased with the initial gold wedge. The uptilting fan is made by gradually adding a bulkier insertion in each shot (row of weaving). I cannot tell you how time-consuming this is! It slowly makes one side of the weft rise up, while the other remains compact.

I want this to give the eye a reminder of the slow fanning-out of time as the day passes, and as the night passes -- or perhaps an image of the rays of the sunlight as they splinter the sky each morning.

I'll keep you posted on its success ... or not. The family members all think it's very cool. I'm reserving judgment.