Tonag with a Twist

A tonag, I learned recently, is a sort of a Scottish poncho.  Here's my Fraser tartan made up into a poncho-like garment.  This version can be worn asymmetrically for an updated look.  It's really a cozy little thing to wear.

The lacy sprang decoration adds to the eccentricity of the garment.

The Plot Thickens

Here's the twist I'm putting into this weaving.

The tartan as seen through sprang worked into the warp while it's still on the loom.

I am working an inset area of sprang in the tartan cloth.  It goes across the entire width of the warp.  This is basic 1/1 interlinked braided structure.

What on earth is this going to be, you ask?

A Tartan Toast

I'm not a huge fan of tartans, but I am a fan of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander books, now being made into a TV series.  In honor of the series entering its second season early next month, I'm weaving a tartan, specifically Fraser of Lovat.  This is in a fine wool at 24 ends per inch and 24 picks per inch for a balanced plain weave rather than the traditional twill, to keep the fabric lightweight.

I'm enjoying the simple interplay of colors.  But as usual I seem to be unable to keep things simple.  So this piece, like a plot in good story, has a twist.  Stay tuned and the twist will be revealed.

Blues Weaving Continues

Yikes!  Think I'll have a few ends to needle in?

My Blues Weaving

Work in progress.  Slit tapestry weave on a floor loom.

Lately I have noticed that my most contented and optimistic moments are those when I am sitting at the loom, weaving. At other times there are the normal doubts and fears, but in those minutes and hours at the loom, everything feels as if it's in the right place and headed in the right direction.

My Blues Palette

After all those dyeing sessions, it's time to weave!  Here are the colors I am now working with.  From top to bottom, Tints, tones, direct modulation, and two levels of tints of the direct modulation series.

Notice in the grayscale version that the tints are reducing the saturation by lightening the value of the blue, while the tones are reducing it while leaving the value constant.  The direct modulation is almost constant value as well.  (Is it my imagination, or does it seem to be slightly darker in the middle of that series?)

One thing I did not include was a gradation of the blue to black by adding increasing amounts of  black (or rather a very dark gray, since I was dyeing white yarn).  So the darkest value is also the value of my most saturated blue.

Saturation studies continued - direct modulation

A third (and to me the most interesting) way to make a color less intense (less saturated) is by direct modulation.  Direct modulation is adding amounts of the direct complement of the original hue.  The direct complement is the hue directly opposite on the color wheel.  In this case my original hue is blue, and its direct complement is an orange.  In a gradation from 100% blue, through 50/50, to 100% orange at the other end of a series, the colors will be less saturated toward the middle of the series, and if they are true complements there should be a point at which there are "equal" amounts of red, yellow and blue, forming gray - a completely neutral, unsaturated color.

For my first direct modulation dye session, I guess I was thinking of orange as the color of an orange, that is, of the skin of an orange.  Well, it turns out that is more of a golden color.  So when I mixed this color with my blue, there was no point at which I got anywhere near a gray.  Instead I got a nice selection of greens.  There was never enough red in my orange to neutralize the blue and yellow.

For this particular blue, I needed a redder orange, more like a tangerine.  My second trial was more successful.  See the grayish hues in the middle of the series?

I think these more muted colors are so interesting that I did a couple more series using less dye, to get tints of the direct-modulated series.