Project Circa 2003-2004
I decided to document this project concurrent with pulling this blanket out and onto the bed as art. This project was done while we lived in Bloomer, WI from 2003 through 2005. I was just a few years into my adventure into fiber art and was in the process of acquiring skills and equipment. I had received a loom as a gift a few years earlier. That was a blessing. While living in WI we found a nearby fiber supplier and farmer. I bought my Lendrum there and some beautiful light silver blue merino wool. I spun that up.
During the summer, I noticed in our field we had mullein growing. I was looking for natural dye material on our property after having read and taken a natural dye course a few years earlier. I setup my dye-pot outside. Gathered and cut the mullein. This was also when I found Dharma Trading and bought wool yarn to be dyed from their mail order catalogue. I dyed the yarn with the mullein which turned into a beautiful gold. At the same time, I wanted to try cochineal. I had bought a sample kit from Carol Leigh. So, I overdyed half of the skeins and they turned into a beautiful purple.
I was going to use a multi colored warp that included the handspun. Went through the process of measuring and cutting, setting up and warping the loom. Tried to weave, and the handspun was too thick. It broke a lot because there wasn’t enough twist. It got very frustrating very fast. The yarn stuck to each other so each treadle was a labor some experience. I decided to switch the plan around and use a black wool as warp, and the more colorful yarns as weft.
After that fiasco, the loom was rest and ready to be started again. About that time, I learned about a technique manually lifting warp threads following a cartoon to create an image overlay. I wanted a moon with suggestion of clouds so I let a couple of weft passes from the background sit across the moon image like a cloudy sky. This was a fun exercise. The overall weave was a weft-faced traveling twill.
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