Citrus Towels

Somewhere I lost my enthusiasm for blogging. The last few months my days no longer follow a routine. Which means less is accomplished with my time. I’m vowing to try to be more productive in all I do.

The towels were inspired by oranges, lemons and limes. When Texas experienced the deep freeze in February most of the citrus trees died. They could not withstand the temps below freezing for several days. Yarn colors representing these fruits were used, lemons – yellow, blood oranges – red/orange, Mandarin oranges – orange, and limes – yellow/green, in weaving these towels.

Like many I took advantage of the free “Stash Busting” workshop offered on-line by Tien Chiu and Janet Dawson. Even as an experienced weaver a workshop will usually offer one or more valuable tools to help you. I learned 2 valuable things.

First I was introduced to the “Cyan, Magenta and Yellow” color wheel. I had always used the “Blue, Red, Yellow”, color wheel. I haven’t totally been converted to the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow wheel but will refer to both wheels when I find myself questioning my color choices.

The second thing I had not done before, was to warp 4 colors in a group . After beaming the warp, the colored threads were moved so as to give a different repeat of colors when threading. The value was a more efficient way to wind warp on the warping board.

I wove two scarves using this warp. One with a powder blue weft, which shows off the pattern. The light color weft makes the darker warp yarns pop.

The second had a magenta weft. This hides the pattern with magenta also being one of warp colors. I used yarns for both scarves that had been languishing in baskets on shelves. A blue rayon flake, a magenta rayon flake, a purple novelty with large nodules, and a aqua 8/2 cotton. The purple yarn with it’s nodules caused weaving problems at times. The nodules sometimes got hung up in reed.

Hopefully I will get my mojo back so there won’t be months between future posts.