Painted Warp Eyes Scarf

Directions

Painting Your Warp

1. Any time you are working with powders, wear a dust mask or respirator. Any time you are working with dye processes, wear gloves.
2. Wind 100 ends of Natural. These will become your painted warp sections. Tie securely but not so tight that it will resist the dye. Tie the warp approximately every 18".
3. Scour the warp: Prepare a bath of room-temperature water and mild soap. Place your warp in and let soak for 15 minutes. Scouring removes any processing oils. You also want the dye goods to be thoroughly wet.
4. Prepare the scoured warp to accept color: Fill a bucket 2/3 of the way with room temperature water. Mix 1/3 cup of soda ash with about 1 cup of water and mix thoroughly until dissolved. Add more water as necessary. Add the solution to the bucket. Soak the warp in this bath for at least 15 minutes.
5. Mix concentrated dyes: Mix 1/2 tablespoon of dye powder with a splash of hot water. Mash the powder and water together into a thick paste. Add more water as necessary, but it doesn’t take a lot! Mix until all the dye powder has dissolved. Add 1/2 cup of warm water and mix again—your dye solution is now ready to go.
6. Cover a work surface with plastic wrap or a plastic tablecloth. Lay out your dye solutions, tools, and the warp. Paint the colors wherever you like. The wetter the warp, the more these colors will bleed.
   
7. Wrap the warp in plastic—use plastic wrap or the table covering. Let sit for 24 hours.
8. Rinse the dyed fiber until the water runs clear. Remove excess water and allow to dry.

Warping

1. Wind the rest of the warp using your preferred method: you’ll need a total of 57 ends of each Blue Ming, Olive, and Amethyst.
2. Warp the loom using your preferred method following the color order and threading sequence. Sley the reed with 2 ends per dent for a total of 24 EPI. Oftentimes when I am designing projects like this, I wind each color separately and then design in the reed to see what order of colors I prefer. Weight the floating selvedges at the back of the loom.
   

Weaving

1. Wind a bobbin with the weft yarn.
2. Leave at least 8" for the fringe.
3. Leave a tail 5 times the width of the weaving at the start and weave following the pattern draft for about an inch. Hemstitch in groups of 4 warps and 3 wefts.
   
4. Continue to weave until you’ve reached approximately 80" or your desired length. Hemstitch as you did at the beginning of the scarf.
   
5. Remove the fabric from the loom, leaving 8" of unwoven warp on each side for fringe
6. Twist the fringe in groups of 8 warps (2 hemstitching groups of 4 warp ends).

Finishing

1. With mild soap, wash by hand in warm water by gently agitating. Leave fabric to soak for approximately 20 minutes.
2. Air dry until scarf is almost dry and then press using a steam iron.