The Rabbit Hole of My Brain

No sooner than I put a weaving plan together do I become distracted with something interesting, at least to me. 

While I wear dark colors, almost exclusively (think black, brown, and navy), green is actually my absolute favorite color. I love celadon. 

Idly scanning through the Instagram feed the other day, I came across a short video of someone making sugar flowers in the most gorgeous green.

Elusive, I could not quite put my finger on what color it was. A google search came up with a color chart, and I asked a couple of friends to assist with identifying it. We all had a different answer. 

Moving over to Design Seeds, I did a search by color and came up with sea glass, which led me to this:

While not perfect, I loved it. 

A month or two ago, I placed an order for additional inserted eye heddles from Captain Yarn on Etsy. While I was poking around to see if I needed anything else, I saw he had some 60% cotton/40% hemp 8/2 thread. I ordered two cones to ensure I passed the threshold for free shipping. 

They came in, and I tucked them aside for something special. 

Linen is my favorite to wear, but I have several articles in hemp, too. 

The initial thought was to wind the thread in hanks and ice dye them using similar colors from above and using the dyed threads to create a warp on the sectional beam, which is what I did here:

However, I would also use the same dyed thread for weft, too. 

The big difference between dyeing hanks for a warp, rather than dyeing chains for a warp, is how much control over the color placement one has. 

Dyeing hanks to pull from one thread at a time generally ensures there is very little pooling of like colors. 

Dyeing chains for a warp groups the colors, as they were dyed. Thus, they are more intact and less random:

In the above photo, there are, at least, five different chains, which were dyed side-by-side, then loaded onto the beam. 

The plan was to create fabric to make a light and breezy top, something like this:

The pattern for the top can be found here. 

At least, that was the plan on Monday before the daughter and I took a trip to TJ Maxx and I found a linen dress with pockets that I had to have for $16.99.

Here it is washed and wrinkled without benefit of even a quick press.

Yes, I should be ashamed of myself for not ironing it, but I am seriously considering taking it apart to make a paper pattern out of it to use this cotton/hemp fabric. Plus, as I mentioned, it has POCKETS!

As to the overgrown state of the garden, it has been raining daily here for weeks. The ground is saturated. Even when the sun peeks out, it is too boggy to mow just yet, perhaps in a few more days...

Of course, it would be too simple just to dye the thread and weave away, I am now thinking I will dye a few hanks in the mushroomy-grey-brown for weft to create a darker end of the fabric, which will become the bottom part of the dress. Of course, this means I will have to make two panels, essentially the same to match, one front and one back...

Further, two cones is plenty for a top, but I need more to make enough fabric for a dress. 

Ha!

More fun to come, I promise!