Winter Warp

I've been quiet for a while, because I've been considering how to use all the colours I dyed during January. So here's where I've been up to.Eventually, I decided to wind balls from my skeins, and to group them into sets of five, based on colour affinity, as shown in the two illustrative sets shown below. Each set contains yarns dyed with different dyestuffs and mordants.

Then I wound a five metre warp from the sets to thread randomly on my Saori loom. Five skeins at a time is the maximum recommended by Kenzo San for winding a random coloured warp. Each skein contains between 45 and 49 metres of yarn (I found that they are not all exactly the same length), so I can obtain eight ends from each coloured skein, plus some yarn left over for a sample. I wound a 200 end warp from five groups of five colours, plus 8 ends from my Bramble skein, to add a pop of purple. This is what the warp looked like, crammed on my warping frame.

And here it is, off the frame and on the table ready to thread up. The wool I am working with is the equivalent of fingering weight, with a wrap of 18 ends to the inch. The warp is quite thick and heavy.

The remaining few metres of yarn I have left are pinned back onto each label and hung on a device my husband made many years ago for me to display passementerie on. I think it is ideal for recording and showing off my colour samples.

Each horizontal peg contains between ten and twelve samples. I have room for over three hundred on the stand, so there is lots of scope for dyeing more colours as the year progresses. Now I just have to put the warp on my loom! Wish me luck!!