Out of an Orange Colored Sky

“I was walking along minding my business

When love came and hit me in the eye

Flash, bam, alacazam,

Out of the orange colored, purple stripes,

Pretty green polka-dot sky

Flash, bam, alacazam,

Went the sky.”

One of my daily tasks is to take the mail from my office to the post box across the street. On my way to the post box, I have a view of the Topa Topa mountain range. On the way back, if the day is clear, I can see, across the farm fields, the Pacific Ocean, and, in the distance, the Channel Islands.

One day last winter there were thunder clouds over the mountains, and a rainbow cast by the setting sun. Directly overhead the sky was a brilliant, glowing orange. On the horizion, the islands were a purple shadow above green seas.

These shawls remind me - just a bit - of the sky that day.

More Fiber in 2010!

In keeping with my Near Year’s resolution – More Fiber in 2010 – Ercil and I had our third-annual Christmas break fiber play date on January 2nd. I tom-sawyered Ercil into helping to measure the warp for my new project, a pair of shawls in mohair and silk. So, with help and persistence, the reed is sleyed and half the heddles threaded:

A Week-End Warp Weighted Loom Project

The plaid yardage is not the first project on this loom. She made her debut at the Griffin Dyeworks Fiber Retreat in 2008, with a group project to weave a shawl in a weekend. We had from noon on Friday until noon on Sunday to weave the header band, tie the heddles, weave and finish off the shawl. For every 15 minutes a participant worked on the project, she or he got a raffle ticket. At the end of the retreat we raffled off the shawl.

Many hands made it possible to finish – although we did have to weave into the night on Saturday to stay on track. Many of the participants had no previous weaving experience, and it was exciting to watch them experience the magic of weaving cloth for the first time.

Here’s a picture of Mel weaving the header band using an inkle loom and warping board, clamped side by side to a table:

And here’s tyeing the heddles:

With a step stool, this became a multigenerational project:

Bridget wields the sword beater:

The warp was black wool from Halcyon Yarn. The weft was space dyed with many flavors of Kool-Aid

for a result that could only be called “tooty fruity”! The multi-color yarn could have been alarming, but the black warp toned it down and made a truly dramatic shawl. Here’s a close up:


And here’s Ercil modeling the finished shawl: