Back to the Backstrap

Hand spun cormo singles (grey); hand spun cormo plied (indigo); sett: 12 epi

And about time too!  
Been too  busy drawing backstrap looms to actually warp one.

Backstrap Dialogues (detail)

But the pleasure is undiminished.

Hand spun Cormo singles (grey); millspun rambouillet plied (lichen yellow); sett: 12 epi

Interesting to go back to the combination of singles and plied yarn I was working on last spring to make those swaths of open cloth now hanging in Tillamook, this time putting some of  the plied yarn in the weft as well.  

shuttles: Purpleheart by Henry C Edwards

It feels so good to be weaving, especially outside,
the rhythm of shifting colors,
of picking up one shuttle as I put down the other,
 compelling enough that it is hard to stop.  
Just one more stripe!​​

It's a pretty open sett for this yarn and requires a light hand with the beater/ rigid heddle, which means the fabric was pretty translucent both on, and freshly off, the loom (above and below).

But a nice soak and swish in hot water fluffed  up both the singles (twist set by time but not water),  and the plied yarn, resulting in a light, flexible but also remarkably sturdy feeling cloth.
​ I think it'd make a wonderful, drapey shirt or light warm jacket--were I to make enough of it.

But as the weather here has suddenly gotten 20 degrees cooler, I've done nothing more than throw it around my neck, where it happily hangs out with last winter's pink and grey sweater,

while I weave the  blue and grey length of cloth in the top photo and  wait to hear from Girlie Press in Seattle, who will, I hope, be printing Backstrap Dialogues, my new 56 page zine,  in the next few days! I was joking yesterday that the comic is:  'artist angst and instructions,' but then decided that's not  accurate as most people, and certainly artists,  do not need angst  instruction. 
Better, perhaps, to say it's half  artistic process, half  technical process, or something boring like that, but I'm sure I'll get my one liner down before I list if in my  my Etsy store --next week, perhaps?
Anyway, I'll  announce it here or in the Newsletter or probably both the moment it is ready --and I think/hope  I'll have it as a downloadable PDF too.  How high tech is that?