I enjoy playing with weave structures. I love visual, and actual, textures. Dyeing yarns and playing with color is fun. I will also giving a talk at my guild (with a couple other members) in February, teaching a weaving class at the Grunewald Guild in Washington this summer, and teaching at Complex Weavers. Could I find a quick project that would serve as an example for all of these projects? Yes!
The images accompanying this posting are of a deflected double weave scarf. The guild presentation is on deflected double weave. It also uses wool and cotton yarn that I fulled the wool after weaving to shrink it. This fits with the class I am teaching at the Grunewald Guild on differential shrinkage. Lastly, the scarf includes a range of values so it fits in with one of my presentations at the Complex Weavers Conference this summer called “The Value of Value.” This last part is what I want to spend some time on.
In the last few years I have become more intentional with how I use value and a range of values in my weaving. In the past, if I wove a summer and winter, shadow weave, or overshot I usually chose two different values (a dark and a light), so that the pattern could be more easily seen. Usually, that is, as I also have some very nice summer and winter, crackle and overshot that where the values are the same and the hues close to identical. However, if there is one thing to add to a weaving to make it more eye catching, it is usually a value change. The wider the value range, the more dramatic it is. So, if what you want is the dramatic, think value!
In this scarf I used a wool yarn that is a medium gray. I also used hand dyed cotton in dark, medium and light purple, red, burgundy, and bright orange. The two lightest values are the light purple and the bright orange. The values on the other yarns are not only more saturated, they
share a similar value range. (Value beingthe relative lightness or darkness of a color, hue saturation.) The red and medium purple yarns are just a little lighter than the others but not as light as the orange and light purple. The overall percentage of these two lighter values is also small, thus they serve as an accent. A mere change in hue (color) would not have accomplished an accent, as it would not stand out in quite the same way. The same can be accomplished in reverse with an accent of dark values on an overall light value weaving. Balancing the amount the values to the equal will still be eye catching but will not have the same accent effect.
As you plan your next weaving project, remember to consider the value of the hues you choose in order to maximize the effect you want.
For more on the importance of considering value in weaving, you can see my previous blog posts on value or sign up for the talk at Complex Weavers this summer.