The Dragon's Lair

I could try to sound all clever and tell you that I'm choosing to show you these pictures on Valentines because the yarn is pink, or because I'm in love with this particular warp - but I'm really not that organized and prepared. I've been meaning to post these pictures for about a week, and it was pure and simple procrastination and lack of spare time that caused this post to land here.

This really is a simply scrumptious yarn. I've never had so much fun just from making a warp. The pictures won't do it justice, but I'll share them anyway. Here is the warp cascading down the front of the loom just after I finished sleying the reed last week ~

See all that shimmery, smooth, smooshy soft loveliness?? It's a 50/50 blend of wool with rayon, and it seems to have the best of both worlds - The silky smoothness and shine of rayon crossed with the cuddly softness of a good wool.

See, here it is again... Like shimmery pink pools ~

There is a bit of turquoise (or is that teal? I've never been good at telling those apart) in there too, as you can see. There will be a lot more of it in the finished product, as that will be the weft color. It's also the same rayon-wool blend as the magenta is. You can see somewhat better from this side how the strands are placed in every so often ~

All this breathtakingly lovely yarn is supposed to become a shawl. I hope the finished product is as lovely as this yarn deserves. Combining these two colors is something to tread carefully with, but I'm hoping the plan will work. It will be a 'two sided' shawl with each color dominating on one side by using a 3/1 straight twill. I'd also like to play with leno a little and add just a few lines of it on either end just to add a little extra flair to the shawl. We shall see how it all turns out!

This last guild meeting was the big yarn exchange party, so there wasn't much time to spare for working over at the loom. I got almost halfway through the threading, but it will be awhile before it's ready to weave since I only get in there once a week. The yarn exchange was a lot of fun though, so I didn't mind the delay!

I hope you all have a happy Valentines day! Don't forget to hug your favorite yarn ;-)