first attempts to weave the northern lights
This evening, after putting lord_kjar on a train to Göteborg, I sat down to play with the new loom and see if I would have any better luck weaving the northern lights than I had yesterday, when I determined several approaches I didn't like.
When I warped the loom I set it up with alternating the cards alternating their direction one S, one Z, repeat. I used two threads per card in a heavy dark blue cotton yarn, one thread per card in a lighter weight linen-cotton turquoise yarn, and the final thread in an unknown fiber type variegated pink that ranges from almost white to very pink. Originally all cards had the same colors in the same position. However, after playing with it I decided that it would look better if all the cards were leaning in the same direction, so I flipped every other one to make them all S direction. Of course, this resulted in every other card having pink where its neighbours have turquoise and vice versa.
I decided that could be an advantage, and set the cards up in sets of three--the first three with the brights colours in positions A & B, the next three with the bright colours in B & C, then in C & D, and finally D & A, at which point I was out of cards. This means that on any given pass of the weft I will have at least one set of three with bright colours up--either in pink-turquoise-pink or in turquoise-pink-turquoise, and the next pass, if I turn the tablets only one quarter turn, will give another set of three, just offset from the last, with the opposite pattern.
The effect in the below photo was achieved by turning the cards inconsistently. Often I do several 1/4 turns in a row, passing the weft after each before changing directions, but sometimes I do half or three quarter turns before passing the weft.
Not a perfect match to the northern lights, but to my eye it gives the impression of them, anyway. I am happy with it as a first draft. Now to decide if I am happy enough with it that it is worth trying to buy some yarn to make a wider version with which to trim the Norrskens bard cloak. The yarn warped for this one used up the last of the variegated pink (which, let me state for the record, I have no idea where it came from and what it was doing in our yarn drawer--it isn't a colour that I would expect either of us to buy in the normal course of things--perhaps it was in a bag of mixed yarn obtained at a second hand store, and the other colours in the bag were interesting?).
Or perhaps I can just forget the tablet woven trim idea?
When I warped the loom I set it up with alternating the cards alternating their direction one S, one Z, repeat. I used two threads per card in a heavy dark blue cotton yarn, one thread per card in a lighter weight linen-cotton turquoise yarn, and the final thread in an unknown fiber type variegated pink that ranges from almost white to very pink. Originally all cards had the same colors in the same position. However, after playing with it I decided that it would look better if all the cards were leaning in the same direction, so I flipped every other one to make them all S direction. Of course, this resulted in every other card having pink where its neighbours have turquoise and vice versa.
I decided that could be an advantage, and set the cards up in sets of three--the first three with the brights colours in positions A & B, the next three with the bright colours in B & C, then in C & D, and finally D & A, at which point I was out of cards. This means that on any given pass of the weft I will have at least one set of three with bright colours up--either in pink-turquoise-pink or in turquoise-pink-turquoise, and the next pass, if I turn the tablets only one quarter turn, will give another set of three, just offset from the last, with the opposite pattern.
The effect in the below photo was achieved by turning the cards inconsistently. Often I do several 1/4 turns in a row, passing the weft after each before changing directions, but sometimes I do half or three quarter turns before passing the weft.
Not a perfect match to the northern lights, but to my eye it gives the impression of them, anyway. I am happy with it as a first draft. Now to decide if I am happy enough with it that it is worth trying to buy some yarn to make a wider version with which to trim the Norrskens bard cloak. The yarn warped for this one used up the last of the variegated pink (which, let me state for the record, I have no idea where it came from and what it was doing in our yarn drawer--it isn't a colour that I would expect either of us to buy in the normal course of things--perhaps it was in a bag of mixed yarn obtained at a second hand store, and the other colours in the bag were interesting?).
Or perhaps I can just forget the tablet woven trim idea?