Two Pretty Throws

Sandra's wool and alpaca throw

Stevie's alpaca throw

There are a couple of sweet things that have come off the looms lately.

Sandra had a throw to weave for a teenaged relative who requested the colors pink, purple, and green in a wool and alpaca throw (wool warp, alpaca filler). She had quite a time figuring out how to design with the guidelines given. Since the color choices from our yarn supplier in this narrow range were somewhat unsuitable, she opted for choosing colors as close to those as seemed to work well together for her warp, with lots of input from everyone else in the studio, including Norman. It's one of the benefits of working with everyone else...you will never run out of opinions or other points of view!

Her next conundrum appeared when she tried to use a white filler, and realized that it just didn't work. The vibrant colors of the warp were just too washed out by the white, and because of the high contrast with the warp colors, every slight imperfection of beat was revealed. What to do?!?

So we put out heads together and came up with using a filler of hand-dyed alpaca in a warm salmon orange. And...it worked. The slight variegation of the hand-dyeing helped to deepen the overall effect of the way this color interacted with all the other warp colors...it enhanced and made them rich and luscious, and created this subtle impression of a warm glow suffusing the whole. It was a very interesting exercise in applying color theory for all of us, and the end result was really a stunning piece!

Stevie has a great love of tackling complex, multi-harness projects out of the weaving magazines. She has a mind that simply adores the challenge of understanding and setting up a complex countermarche tie-up, and she has the skill and persistence to execute these projects beautifully.

This throw was woven in alpaca. It's an 8-harness tie-up and the pattern is called Pinwheel. Stevie's also weaving a run of fine scarves using the same pattern, and I know that one of our Vermont students, Beth Balon, won a blue ribbon for her entry woven in Pinwheel, last fall at the Tunbridge Fair. It's a really spectacular pattern. We'll try and post a photo of Stevie's scarves next time.