Monday 23 February 2009

Dyeing and ribbon

I managed to get some dyeing done this weekend. Wasn't sure how it would turn out, but it actually worked approximately how I had hoped. The yarn is a 2 ply, one ply is a pale brown linen, the other ply a dusty rose synthetic. I used Earth Palette reactive dye (blue), and as I had hoped the pink failed to take any of it. The blue is actually darker than I had thought it would be (I suspect because I used the weight of the yarn, rather than the weight of the linen for my calculations). I'm still trying to work out whether I want to do a purple batch too. I think I may have to dig out one of my other dye pots and do two batches at once next time.

The tablet weaving is progressing slowly - it works well when I can sit down and work on it uninterrupted, but it's not so good when I'm trying to do things like cooking dinner at the same time. It's about 50cm long so far. There are a few mistakes, and the tension is horribly uneven (both of these are at least partly because of not just working on it constantly). I still like the effect of the floats, and I definitely like my new cards (super-thin plywood, rather than playing cards). They're much easier to manipulate, and seem to tangle a lot less than the playing cards did.

I'm not sure how well the ribbon will photograph - I'll have to have a good play and see just how good my camera is at close-ups.

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