Onward to a New Scarf

Remember this sketch from yesterday's post?

 Well I decided that it would be my first to prototype and put into production. So I refined the design a bit.

 Decided upon precise proportions of colour across the warp. All the green areas are super fine monofilament because it's soft enough to wear.

 Next I had to decide on the structure. I'm restricted to 8 shafts at the moment so I had to play with 6 shafts for the pattern - the other 2 are for the monofilament. I also wanted heavy and light weight tiny squares to make some textural difference to the surface, even though it will be felted after weaving.

 Next I was onto dying. It's very tricky to take photos on my phone to show the right colours, but this was the closest with adjustments. Slightly veriagated magenta.

 The next is a kind of dark purple.

 I have also dyed some black wool but am considering also dying some tencel black to add yet more texture and shine.. but maybe I already have enough texture!

Am I insane? These are the two very thin monofilament warps. 20epcm .. hmm.. They will go into a lime dyepot tomorrow. Looking forward to it!
--melly

A Way to Get Moving

I made a quiet New Year's resolution to myself - three scarf designs a day. I didn't post any of them here straight away, because I wanted to make sure I would actually stick to it for a while - unlike so many other resolutions I've made.

So here are a few. They're very rough and need refining quite a bit before weaving, but they are a start. Even if I can't keep it up when I go back to work, at least I'll have something to go on.

I might post a few more tomorrow. I also have a few Lacroix sketches coming along too!
--melly

Painting at Sturt Summer School

My holiday treat this year was going to Sturt Summer School to do a class it oil painting with a pallet knife with David Middlebrook . David's paintings are devine and quite inspirational - make sure you look at the details. I've always wanted to take formal painting lessons and I think David brought out the best in all of us. The entire class was terrific - people, teacher, places we went, things that we drew and painted. And I'll also add that it was incredibly challenging and frustrating at times - but I looked on it as a personal challenge to stick at it until I got it - and it was really rewarding as a result. This is what I ended up with :

So they're nothing I'd put on my wall, but the main idea wasn't to have something finished, just exercises really. And we did lots of sketches too. I haven't done so much consistent drawing since art school. I'd highly recommend any of David Middlebrook's classes to anyone, at any level.
--melly

New Year's Weaving

I finished off and redyed the scarves I had on the loom -

 And this is the next warp - space dyed wool and monofilament double warp - to be dyed afterwards.

I just looove monofilament! I could never stop using it!
--melly