Sunday, April 08, 2012

Tea Towels

My second towel in the turned taquete pattern got a blue weft. I am enamored with how the colors work together. Granted, I have limited experience with color in weaving, but I hope the magic never wears off.
These are the eight colors in the warp. So far I've used the two on the bottom right for weft and have decided to use the top left two for my last two towels.
The butter yellow was too light a value for the hues in my warp and I think it really washed out this towel to the level of pastel. That surprised me.

I am much happier with the pumpkin weft, as the value is equal to those in the warp. I've heard this over and over but now I understand why value is so important. The pale yellow isn't wrong but it wasn't the best choice of my eight options. I'm chalking it up to a lesson learned.
They're off the loom and seeing the picture I realize I didn't do a good job of wet finishing - need to get on that. I'm already planning the next warp. Warping goes quick since you can hold two threads together at time - half the work, half the time.
Changing the subject, my son Josh found these two arrowheads in our dry creek bed a couple of years ago. I posted them on my blog last year and an archaeologist friend emailed me to say he saw the post and thought they were old, certainly older than our local tribes. Kay Fowler, archeology professor emeritus is a member of our weaving guild so I showed them to her last week at our meeting. The whole leaf shape one is from chert and is unfinished. The broken one is from basalt which places it in the Sierra Nevada range area. She said it could have broken while it was being worked because there was an inclusion in the stone, or it could have broken inside an animal during a hunt. She asked me where they came from and I said Red Rock (our valley). She laughed and said, well then that's the Sierra Nevadas alright. She thought they are between 1,000 and 2,000 years old. How's that for American history?! It gives me goosebumps.

I'm picking up DD Chris and Alexia in the morning and we're going to haunt thrift stores for the day. Afterwards, Alexia comes home with me for her last week of school break. This is the first time she's asked to spend two weeks of a month break with us. I don't have a loom for her but I'm sure we can find things to do.

13 comments:

Valerie said...

Your towels look great. Good lessons on the color. Every time I've tried to weave with those colors, the end product looked like Florida beach chairs. My problem was there was always a white in the mix....your golds do a much better job of getting the pinks through blues to play well together.

Wow!!...on the arrowheads.

Have a fun week.

Nina said...

I agree with your thoughts on the yellow pastel towel,however the others are spectacular.

Pretty cool about the arrowheads. That is amazing history.

Cindie said...

Yes, the light yellow does wash the colors out but all the towels are great - don't you just love getting such different looking towels all off one warp!

danielle said...

I love how your towels came out!

Jody said...

Wow, what gorgeous tea towels. If I saw those for sale I would snap them up!

Amanda Cutler said...

Beautiful towels! I just love that blue one. What pattern did you use? It's so wonderful! Please share!

Annie said...

Playing with colour is one of the things I enjoy most in weaving! It will always be interesting.
Your teatowels are beautiful. Even the very light one is nice in my opinion. It's just very different from the others.
I loved your story about the arrow heads.

Laura said...

I like the pumpkin one too, though they are all beautiful. You mentioned that you didn't think you did a good job wet finishing - did you press them after? Laura Fry is a pressing fiend, and I think that's what makes her stuff look so good!! Of course, she has a mangle, which can exert a lot more force than you or with an iron, but maybe a couple of bath towels on your tile counter, dish towel on top and leaning on it for all you're worth would do it!!

Laura said...

I like the pumpkin one too, though they are all beautiful. You mentioned that you didn't think you did a good job wet finishing - did you press them after? Laura Fry is a pressing fiend, and I think that's what makes her stuff look so good!! Of course, she has a mangle, which can exert a lot more force than you or with an iron, but maybe a couple of bath towels on your tile counter, dish towel on top and leaning on it for all you're worth would do it!!

Benita said...

I like the one with the pumpkin weft best and the blue second.

We used to find arrow heads whenevery my dad and uncles would plow and disk each spring. I've never seen one like that leaf shaped one, though. It's cool!! And I doubt if ours were nearly that old, either.

Benita said...

I like the one with the pumpkin weft best and the blue second.

We used to find arrow heads whenevery my dad and uncles would plow and disk each spring. I've never seen one like that leaf shaped one, though. It's cool!! And I doubt if ours were nearly that old, either.

Michelle said...

Beautiful towels; I love the way they look together!

Amanda Cutler said...

Sharon, sorry I lost that email you sent with the newsletter and pattern a few weeks ago. Do you mind sending it to me again? I went to look for it today and I just couldn't find it in my email box! Technology can be so frustrating!